Adventure in a Strange Land
by Hastur
Summary: Looking for a break from all the incest in this section? Keep looking! Alex and Justin go on an adventure, accidentally. It will bring them closer if they can survive one another! Jalex.
1. Chapter I

**A.N.: I was originally going to write a sequel to my story "Have yourself a merry little incest" and call it "Incest and Peppermints", but I couldn't think of a good plot for it, that is, one that would allow for a lot of puns and humor. (The only thing I thought of was a funny tagline for the summary, which I think I'll keep for this one.) So instead I'm writing this one. This is mostly adventure, with some Jalex tension thrown in because what else happens on an adventure with these two? The only real examples we have of them on an adventure _in the original work itself_ have been rife with Jalex tension. So :P**

**Anyway, this might have a bit of humor, but it will be incidental, and not the driving force.**

*** * ***

Justin was scrounging around in the lair, looking for a particular spellbook that his father had said "was in there somewhere". The title was "Advanced Monster Hunting Spells, Third Edition" and was supposed to be very good, that is, if Justin could find it. His father had never been the most organized person ever, and Justin wondered sometimes if he was really his son*. He picked up an old leather tome and blew some dust off of it. It wasn't the book he was looking for, it was only the Blue Book of Wands from 1780. Just as he was putting it back, however, something papery and white fell out of it. Figuring it was a bookmark, he bent over to pick it up. It appeared to be a napkin with some writing on it. He looked at it closely – it was apparently a spell of some sort, scrawled in his father's hand.

Justin, setting aside his task at hand for the moment, began to go upstairs when he ran into his sister**.

"Justin, what were you doing down here?" she said suspiciously.

"I was looking for a book dad said I could read, but then I found this," he said, showing her the napkin. "It seems to be a spell that dad wrote down, for some reason, and I want to ask him about it."

"The best way to find out what a spell does is to cast it," Alex explained, snatching the napkin from Justin before he could protest.

"Alex, you don't know what it does -" Justin warned her, but he was cut off by Alex.

"Look, it says right here it takes you to a 'fantastic land'. Don't you want to see what that's like? We can always come back," she said. "_Inexorias Geeysys -"_

"Wait, stop!" Justin said, placing a hand on Alex's to try and stop her. But it was too late.

"-_ Bloomin_" she finished. At the completion of the spell a vortex of light began to swirl around Justin and Alex. It spun faster and faster, and neither of them could get out of it. Justin was trying to reach out of it and grab on to something when suddenly the world went black.

* * *

The next thing Justin knew, he and Alex were lying by the bank of a stream in the middle of a field. Hills rolled into the background and a little path crossed perpendicular to the stream, going across a bridge in the middle of it. The bridge was small and wooden, and there was a wooden signpost with a wooden arrow on it.

Justin rubbed his head and shook Alex gently, his hand brushing her shoulder, bare from the peasant blouse-like shirt she was wearing. It sent strange tingles up his spine, which was odd. He'd touched his sister before† but never had he felt this before. He decided to ignore it.

"Justin," she whined, vaguely waving her arm in an attempt to get him off of her‡.

"No, get up and look around – the spell must have worked, we're someplace else or something. But I have no idea where it is," he said. Alex opened her eyes.

"Well this doesn't look extremely fantastic," she said, a tone of slight disappointment sneaking into her voice.

"Good, then we can go," Justin said, pulling out his wand. Alex stopped him, laying a hand on his wrist.

"Wait, I want to look around a bit, maybe there is something fantastic about this place after all. What's this sign say?" she said, walking over to the arrow. Now that she was closer she could see that on it was the word "Hamlet."

"Huh, there's a play over that way," Alex said, pointing.

"No, not a play," Justin said, also reading the sign. "It's a term for a small village. Maybe they'll be able to tell us where we are, and then we can go back home, OK?"

"All right, that sounds fair enough," Alex said as she and Justin began to walk off in the direction of the arrow.

* * *

*Yes, he is his son. I'm not going _there_.

**Although not literally, just you know, figuratively.

† OK, that sounds worse than it is. You know, just when you're talking to someone and you lightly touch them, like for emphasis or something? No? Darn.

‡ I am not doing well for innuendo. Or I'm doing excellently for innuendo.


	2. Chapter II

As they walked down the path, they came to a wooden fence. It was a long fence and they couldn't see what it was there for, but the path followed it, so they stayed along it. Eventually, as they came down a rise, a man in archaic dress leading a donkey with a cart attached passed them the other way. He gave them funny looks as he passed.

"What was that about?" Alex asked when they were out of earshot.

"I don't know," Justin said. "Maybe this is a rural area still used to the old ways. Or maybe that's just how it is here. I mean, we are in another land, apparently. Maybe it's the past?"

"I suppose it could be," Alex said. "I guess we really have no idea of knowing."

"But we would know if we had asked dad about it instead of just casting it willy-nilly," Justin said, somewhat severely.

"Yeah yeah, but then we wouldn't be on an adventure!" Alex said, smiling and teasing Justin slightly.

"Anyway, if this is any indication," Justin continued, more or less ignoring Alex. "Then the village we encounter will be likewise old-fashioned. We should probably try not to mention any technology or use any slang," he admonished.

"Yeah yeah, whatevs," Alex said.

"Alex! That is completely the opposite of what I said."

"Pfft, it's just you and me right now," Alex said. Justin sighed.

"Well all right, just as long as you act natural when we meet other people. And we may have to change our clothes," Justin said.

"Where are we going to get new clothes?" Alex asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know, maybe this hamlet will have some."

"I doubt there would be a retail line in a small village," Alex grumbled. "I mean it's hard enough to find stuff in our borough and we live in New York."

"It is probable that there will be someone who has old clothes they don't need anymore that might fit us," Justin explained after mumbling to himself for a bit first to get the wording right. "But I don't think we have anything to trade with them."

"Yeah, and it's not like they'll take our money here," Alex said.

"Plus a lot of villages operate on the barter system," Justin continued to explain.

"I got that from when you said we wouldn't have anything to trade with," Alex said, nodding.

"Right, yeah, sorry," Justin said. They were silent for a while. Eventually they came across the hamlet. They could tell because there were a few small builds on either side of the path and a number of people going about their business in the streets. The townsfolk stopped and peered queerly at Justin and Alex.

"Looks like you were right about our clothes," Alex whispered to Justin.

"Also, they might not be used to outsiders," Justin added, also whispering. "Um, hello!" he said out loud to the nearest man who was looking at the two.

"Ah, I see you speak the common tongue," said the nearby man, beginning to smile warmly. "Though your accent is foreign," (of course, to Alex and Justin this man had a strange accent too. Neither of them could place where it was from, however) "It is our custom to welcome visitors. Forgive us for staring," he added. "We haven't had visitors in quite some time. This is a very small town. And your dress looks so fine," he continued. "I'm certain that drew some eyes too."

"Actually, we were hoping we could find some old clothes here, but I'm afraid our money is likewise foreign," Justin said, surprised that they were speaking English. He held out some quarters.

"By Freyjinn, those are indeed some strange-looking silver you have there."

"Actually, they're not quite-" Justin began, only to have his foot stamped on by Alex.

"They're not quite foreign," Alex continued, beginning to lie. "They're just new."

"New, eh? We've heard that one before," he said, beginning to laugh. "I'm afraid we can't accept them. But if you'd like, we might be able to come to an arrangement. Please allow my wife and I to feed you, it is the least our culture likes to do for visitors."

"Thank you," Alex said, blushing slightly because he'd seen through her embellishment.

Justin and Alex followed him to his home. It was small and squat, and turned out to have but two rooms – a main room that served as a kitchen and living area, and a small bedroom. A stout woman was cooking something in a pot over a fire. Nowhere did Justin or Alex see any signs of modernity.

"Guests for supper Martha," the man said to the woman over the pot. "Stew, is it?"

"Aye," she said, pulling the spoon out and smacking away his hand that was reaching for the pot. "And none until supper."

The man rubbed his hand. "Oh my, I have forgotten to introduce meself," he said. "I am John the Smith. Some people call me John Smith. It's a funny title, if I do say so myself. And this is my wife, Martha."

"Pleased to meet you," Martha said, smiling at Justin and Alex. Alex smiled back.

"Please sir," Justin said, turning to John. "We're lost. Could you tell us where we are?"

"Well this village doesn't have a name, so I imagine you are more lost than that. You do know you're in the kingdom of Arma, don't you?"

"Actually, no, we seemed to have been teleported here randomly," Justin said, something beginning to dawn on him.

"Er, what he means is," Alex said, confused by Justin's admission that magic existed and wondering why he was exposing it to mortals.

"What I mean is, some mages were doing an experiment that went awry," Justin continued, calmly.

To Alex's surprise, John merely nodded sagely. Her eyes were wide as John said "Aye, those mages can be zealous in their studies! Well, I hope you get back to where you need to be soon," he said.

"Can I speak with you a moment?" Martha said to John, pulling him into the back room.

Meanwhile, Alex turned angrily, or perhaps she was more confused than angry, to Justin. "Justin, what's going on? Why did you just tell him that? I mean it's not exactly untrue but, how does he know about magic? And how did you know he knew?"

"Alex, we're in the middle of the kingdom of Arma and they swear by the god Freyjinn. I know exactly where we are now."

He paused for dramatic effect. "We're in the Dark Forgotten Land of Nurb-Rom," he said, finishing with a dense finality, fully expecting Alex to realize exactly what that meant.

"Huh?" she replied. Justin's face sunk.

"It's a Dungeons and Gargoyles setting."

"Wait, you mean, we're in a _roleplaying game_?" Alex asked, eyebrows cocked with incredulity.

"That's about the size of it," Justin said. "Now you know where you are, let's go back. I'm sure you don't actually want to be here." He pulled out his wand and tried to teleport them back. Nothing happened. He tried a few other simple spells, but none of them worked either. He frowned.

"Wait, we're in another world, right? So we must have to obey that world's rules, right? What did you say Dungeons and Gargoyles characters all had? Some sort of profession that said what they could do?" Alex asked.

"A class, yes. Wait, you think that we have character classes? Of course, that makes sense!"

"What class do you think we are?" Alex wondered.

"I'd say Wizard," Justin said. He tried casting a spell that he knew all Wizards had in D&G: _Light_. The tip of his wand lit up.

"Look, I'm a Wizard! You try it with your wand," he suggested. Alex did as she was told, but nothing happened.

"I think I'm not a Wizard in this world. What was I that one time I played?" she asked. To see what all the fuss was about, she'd once joined her brother's game. She didn't admit to having fun or anything, but it was more amusing than she would have thought. "It was like a thief thing but it also had magic?"

"A Shadowstriker?" Justin said. "Try casting Darkness."

Alex imagined a magical darkness swirling about her, and soon enough the light in the area was dimming. She continued to concentrate and eventually neither of them could see anything at all. Then she let it go, and the light levels returned to normal.

"Hmm, this is a problem," Justin said. "If we're our characters from the last game we played, then I am indeed a Wizard" (Justin often played Wizard) "But, we're also only level two."

"I thought level two was way powerful compared to normal people."

"Yes, it is." Justin admitted. "But there are heroes who are way more powerful. And more pertinently, I won't be able to cast the spell that gets us out of here until I'm level 15."

"So we'll have to get some levels," Alex said, shrugging. "It can't be that hard."

"Alex, it could be extremely dangerous!" Justin said.

"Nothing we haven't faced before," Alex said, smirking.

* * *

Meanwhile, Martha and John were talking.

"Don't you see," Martha said to John. "Funny way of talking, funny money, subjects of funny experiments? These two are _adventurers_."

"I think you're right," John said. "By Freyjinn, they may be the ones..."


	3. Chapter III

**A/N: If you haven't guessed, for Dungeons and Gargoyles I'm mostly using the rules to Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition but changing them to fit the story better. This means that the rules may not even be internally consistent, but I'll try to keep them close. **

* * *

"If we're our game characters," Alex continued. "Where is our stuff? I thought I had a pair of daggers," she said, frowning.

"You had a pair of stilettos," Justin said absently.

"No, I'm pretty sure I had sensible shoes," Alex corrected.

"No no, stilettos are a kind of dagger," Justin explained.

"Oh, then technically I was right, I did have a pair of daggers."

Justin sighed. "The point is, you're right. We don't have our equipment and that is a bad place to be. I can't cast any of the higher level spells without at least my component pouch. I might be able to scrape together some useful bits, but otherwise I don't know. And you can't use your attack maneuvers without your daggers."

"Ha, you called them daggers," Alex said, sticking out her tongue.

"Look," Justin said, ignoring it for now. "We have to convince our hosts we are adventurers. I mean, I guess we are, so it shouldn't be too hard. We can show them our powers, like Light and Darkness."

Just then, Bob and Martha came out of the back room and Justin and Alex went quiet and looked at them.

"You two are adventurers, aren't you?"

"Yes," Justin said slowly. "Yes, yes we are," he finished, much more surely. "I'm a Wizard and she is a Shadowstriker. But we seem to have lost our equipment and our money is foreign," he explained, more or less truthfully.

"I understand," John said. "Well, your clothing is very fine. We could trade you more plain clothes and supplies for them," he suggested.

Alex frowned slightly. She liked her outfit. Still, she could come to live without it if it meant that they'd eventually find a way out of here. Justin looked at Alex for confirmation, and she nodded.

"All right, it's a deal," he said.

* * *

The outfit they chose for Alex wasn't bad, actually. She had expected that since they were in some sort of archaic land, they'd have picked out some frilly dress. But instead, she had a very comfortable outfit that was still not too loose to get caught on things. The pants were kind of like skinny jeans, she felt, except not made of denim. The shirt was a very soft cotton and on top of that she had a flexible leather jacket, which was thicker than most leather jackets she was used to, but she was still surprised that all this was worth her old clothes. Still, she knew from Dungeons and Gargoyles before that the economy was a little bit...strange, and that this whole outfit constituted leather armor, which was the "highest" armor that a Shadowstriker could use or else they lost the ability to use their Shadow Strike. It had something to do with having the freedom to maneuver. She also had a belt pouch and a bandolier of sorts, into which she could put whatever she needed, including her daggers. John and Martha had given her a pair. They weren't stilettos, nor were they as nice as the daggers Alex's character had before (both according to Justin) but she found them usable. Strangely she was able to sheathe and pull them out quickly, and she found herself adopting a fighting stance almost by instinct when she pulled them out. She supposed this was all part of her class' proficiency with daggers.

Alex giggled when Justin stepped out of the back room after it was his turn to get changed. Apparently they were saving the dress for him.

"I'll have you know that these are classic Wizard robes," Justin said in response to Alex's giggles.

"You still look like a girl," Alex commented.

"Either way," Justin said, trying to ignore her again. "I need to assemble a spell component pouch. Mr. Smith, I require a number of small consumables you may be able to help me with? An iron nail, some copper filings, some bat guano, some clay...ah what else," Justin said, closing his eyes to try to remember what else was in a typical spell pouch. A Wizard in Dungeons and Gargoyles needed certain small items in order to cast their spells. They fell into two main categories: Foci and material components, the difference being that foci are not used up by the spell, but material components are. "And I seem to have lost my spell book, meaning I'll be limited to only the most basic spells," he continued.

"I'm sure the craftsmen in town will let you go through their scrap bins for your spell pouch," John said reassuringly. "And we have an Adept in town who would likely be more than willing to let you copy her spell book over."

"That sounds good. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Smith," Justin said. "You've been too kind."

"Actually, we were hoping that once you gathered your equipment, you could do something for us," Martha said.

"Martha!" John cried. "Don't be rude to our guests, we made the exchange of these supplies for their clothes fair and square, and we have nothing else to offer them if asked them to... well I mean, we couldn't!"

"What is it?" Justin asked. "We're always willing to help people in need. Well I am. I think I could convince Alex to help too, though."

"Hey!" Alex said. "I'm right here you know."

"All the better. But what is it?"

"We have a flock of sheep," Martha said. "It's past the town going in that direction" (she pointed to indicate) "But it's near some woods in which there lives an ogre. He keeps getting into our pen and eating them. We're almost out. If you could go into the woods and put a stop to it, we would be much obliged."

"You want us to kill an ogre?" Alex asked in astonishment. "Justin, are we even high enough level to do that?"

John and Martha looked confused at the mention of this. Justin shushed her.

"What she means is, she's not sure defeating an ogre is within our capabilities. We are but novice adventurers, you see," he explained. "Excuse me a moment," he continued, pulling Alex outside briefly.

"Look, I think that we're the only ones here who understand that we're in a game, governed by rules. I don't know why, probably because we're from someplace else. You'll have to put things in different terms," he explained to Alex.

"OK, OK, but like I said, are we even high enough level to beat an ogre?"

"If it's a common ogre it might be.. difficult. They're a level three monster and we're level two. But it's doable. It would be far better if we had about two more people with us who are our level."

"Maybe there are some in the town," Alex suggested.

"Good idea, let's go ask John," Justin replied.

They went back inside, and John and Martha peered at them curiously.

"We believe we can defeat the ogre if we have help," Justin said. "Do you have anyone in town who would be willing to take up arms against it?"

"There is a man named Gregory Able who may be able to help you," John said. "He hasn't gone himself because he said no man could defeat it by themselves in single combat, but a number might overpower it."

"Where can we find him?" Justin said.

"Our meeting hall doubles as a pub – or perhaps our pub doubles as a meeting hall. Either way, it's where most of us spend our off-hours. You may be able to find him there."

"Thank you. Alex, I want you to go see if you can recruit Mr. Able while I meet with the Adept to copy her spells. I'll meet you in the meeting hall," Justin said, giving the orders.

"Which one is that? The meeting hall, I mean," Alex asked.

"It's the biggest building in the center of town," John replied. Justin nodded.

"Thank you once again," Justin said as he and Alex left to perform their duties.


	4. Chapter IV

The Adept turned out to be a young woman, barely older than Justin. He would probably guess her age was somewhere between 18 and 22. And she was beautiful. Her dark black hair cascaded down her back and also framed her smooth, oval face. Her perfectly clear skin almost seemed to shine, as did her deep blue eyes.

"Hi," Justin managed, after he had stood awkwardly at the door for a moment.

"Welcome," the Adept said, smiling brightly. "You must be the visitor. Please, do come in," she said, stepping aside to let Justin in. Justin gulped and obeyed. Her home was also two rooms, but it looked decidedly different. There were books everywhere, as well as other various items of occult import. It rather reminded Justin of their own lair back home.

"How can I assist you?" she said, pulling a book off a shelf. Something about the way her dress swished caused Justin to feel guilty.

"My name is Justin, and I am a Wizard," Justin began, opting for the straightforward approach. "Well, I guess I'm not much of one right now, because I lost my spellbook."

"Oh, that's a shame."

"I was hoping, uh, you might be able to allow me to copy your spellbook."

"Anything for a fellow studier of the arcane arts," she said, smiling brightly. "Imagine that, an Adept helping a Wizard." She giggled and Justin blushed a little bit.

"I'm certainly not too proud to accept help when I need it."

The Adept smiled again. "Well, Justin, I can help you. Oh how dreadful of me! I forgot to introduce myself. You already know I am the Adept in this village, but you don't know my name. I am Samantha."

"That's a lovely name," Justin said. Then he realized what he'd just said and blushed again.

"Thank you," Samantha said. "Now... do you have a book into which you can copy these spells?"

Justin pulled a wrinkled wad of paper from his robes. "Sort of," he explained.

"Oh that will never do! I can't have you going around without a proper spell book, especially if anyone finds out that I have been helping you. Here, I have a spare blank one, please take it."

"Oh, thank you, but I couldn't."

"Didn't you just say you're not too proud?" Samantha gave an adorable teasing pout. Justin tried not to shudder too visibly, and continued to feel guilty for finding this woman so attractive. Why he should feel guilty about that, he wasn't sure of.

"OK, I'll take it."

"OK? What does this mean?" Samantha asked. Justin mentally cursed at himself. Whenever he was roleplaying his character he tried not to use the word "OK" because it was a modern colloquialism. Of course, when he was roleplaying his character he was talking to Zeke, not a beautiful woman like the one in front of him.

"Er, it means 'All right'. It's a word from where I come from," he explained.

"Such a funny expression! But we have work to do, now," she said, sitting down on a couch with two books and motioning for Justin to join her.

* * *

Justin thanked Samantha when their work was done and headed off to the pub/meeting hall to see if Alex had gotten Gregory Able to help them yet. The hall was easy to find, just as had been expected. It was essentially a longish building with a fireplace at one end and a long table laid out. There was a barrel near the fireplace, and everyone was congregated near it, drinking from it. He saw his sister there, apparently drinking beer and laughing with someone who also looked to be about Justin's age.

"Alex!" Justin cried, storming up to her. "What are you drinking?"

"A pretty good dark beer," Alex replied, looking at her mug. "You want some?"

"Alex! You're too young to drink!"

"Not here. Besides it's not like I haven't had any before."

"Whoa, whoa, calm down," the man with whom Alex had been laughing said to Justin. "It's not very strong, I'm sure she'll be fine."

For some reason Justin didn't like the tone he was taking, but since he presumed this to be Gregory Able he bit his tongue.

"Greg knows his alcohol," Alex said, laughing. Gregory joined in. Justin felt something strange. He didn't want to say it was jealousy, per se, because that didn't make much sense. He chalked it up to feeling protective of his sister. He did feel a bit hypocritical for trying to protect her from flirting with this guy, though, considering the attraction he had to Samantha just recently. But even that attraction was causing him feelings of guilt, which also didn't make sense.

"Well, I hope he also knows his ogres. I think with the three of us, we can defeat him. What kind of weapon do you prefer, Gregory?"

"I am most comfortable with pole-arms, but you'd be surprised how much we lack them around here. Instead I'll be using a pitchfork as a makeshift trident."

Alex giggled. Justin ignored it and nodded. "That sounds like a plan," he said. "So when should we leave? I think it'd be best to go soon, while he's still asleep."

"Aww, so soon?" Alex said, scooting up next to Gregory and laying her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes. "I'm tired."

Justin grew angry, and pulled her off of Gregory. "Alex, get up! Now is not the time to sleep off drunkenness."

Obligingly, she sat up, but then grew weary again and this time laid her head on Justin's shoulder. She yawned.

"I'm sorry about that," Gregory said, honestly, as Alex dozed off. "I don't presume to take your woman from you."

Justin wanted to say "Oh really? Then why were you all flirting with her? I saw the way you two looked at each other," but that didn't correct the fact that Gregory was wrong about Alex being "his" woman. After all, she was his sister, not girlfriend. "Don't worry about that. She's not my woman, she's my, well..." he realized that their characters were _not_ related, despite the characters' players being related. He wasn't sure exactly what to tell Gregory. "We're close friends," he said.

Gregory nodded. "That may be, but are you sure she doesn't harbor any feelings for you?" he said softly. Alex was now visibly asleep, and in fact snoring slightly. Justin still thought this was not a good topic of conversation to hold while she was here anyway, so he carefully removed her from his shoulder and let her lie on the table, while he motioned for Gregory to come outside with him. Gregory nodded and followed.

Once outside, Gregory lit up a pipe. "As I was saying, she said some very nice things about you. I almost think she does have feelings for you. I admit, I may have considered courting with her a bit at first, but that was before I knew you were around." Dear Freyjinn he was making this awkward. Justin grew warm and uncomfortable to be thinking that someone was thinking about him and his sister in such a manner.

"Well I thank you for your consideration, but nothing could happen between us, trust me. It would make things awkward, for both of us," he explained. That much was extremely true.

Gregory nodded. "I understand. When you're an adventurer, relationships kind of have to fall by the wayside, and it can be bad for the rest of your group if two of you do fall in love. You are a wise man, Justin."

Gregory was being so gentle about it that Justin felt guilty for ever being mad at him in the first place. Today was just not his day for ill feelings. He felt even worse when Gregory offered him a hit of his pipe, but to be polite Justin took it. He fully expected to cough it out immediately, but he managed to hold this back. It wasn't as bad as he would have thought, and it caused a pleasing sensation.

"Here is what I was thinking, with the ogre," Gregory continued. "We wait until dark, and we ambush it when it comes to eat the sheep as they sleep."

"Don't ogres have good night vision, though? We'd be at a severe disadvantage."

"Aye, that's where you come in. My strategy hinges on you casting the Light spell. We'll overpower its dark vision, and it will be practically blind. It'll be worse going from absolute darkness to sudden light."

"That's... that's a great plan. Why haven't you done it before?" Justin asked, though he immediately wished he hadn't because it seemed to imply that he was accusing Gregory of something.

"Sam is the only one in the village with any magic, and I didn't want to expose her to that kind of danger," Gregory explained. "But you're an adventurer! Danger is part and parcel for you," he smiled, and slapped Justin on the back.

"That's true. It still sounds serviceable. So while I distract it with magic, you and Alex will attack it?"

"Here's how that's going to work. When you distract it with your spell, I will rush at it, attacking with my trident, er, pitchfork. I don't expect to do a lot of damage, frankly. Mostly what I want to do is provide the distraction for Alex to sneak up behind it, from a certain hiding spot, where she will do the most damage. She is a Shadowstriker, after all. That's where she'll be the most effective. So anyway, that's the plan – distract then flank the beast."

"Sounds good. And Alex is in the least dangerous position, which is desirable."

"Wouldn't it be more desirable to put you in the least dangerous position, practically speaking?"

"Yes, but I don't want any harm to come to her. I'm willing to risk myself for that."

"Ah. Well don't worry, I have the most dangerous job."

"I know. I appreciate it."

Gregory smiled. He and Justin shared his pipe for a while, until Alex came out, fresh from her nap.

"Justin! First you yell at me for drinking, now you smoke?"

"Hey now, I'm old enough to smoke back home," he said. That much was true.

"But smoking is way worse for you than drinking."

"You know what's even worse than either of those?" Gregory interjected. "Getting eaten by an ogre. All right, I've gone over the plan with both of you. Now we just need to wait for a few hours, then set up our ambush."


	5. Chapter V

**A.N. Wheeeeeee finally updating!**

When night fell, Justin, Alex and Gregory set out with all their gear, prepared to engage the ogre in combat. They walked down the forest path, set with trees all around. Alex found a good place to hide – she found that her hiding skills were better than she remembered, given that she was now following the rules of this universe, which said she had better hiding skills than she did in "real life" or "her universe", whichever way this spell that she'd cast worked.

The plan was to lure the ogre past Alex's hiding spot, then assault it, allowing Alex to sneak up behind it and use her Death Strike, since that was their most powerful asset at the moment, given that Justin didn't have access to more expensive material components or foci for some of the better spells in his book right now.

"You'll be all right alone until the ogre comes by?" Justin asked, worried. He had to address his statement in the general direction of Alex, since he couldn't actually see her.

"Duh, I'm hiding. You probably have a better Spot than the ogre will given the bonus for _knowing_ I'm here and you don't even see me," Alex replied. Fortunately, Gregory was off a little ways, so it was safe to talk about the game mechanics.

"All right, just... be careful," he admonished, before turning to catch up with Gregory to seek out the ogre.

He and Gregory walked on in silence so as not to attract the attention of the ogre until it was time. Justin glanced at him nervously, but as Gregory seemed to be comfortable with the situation, Justin calmed down considerably. After all, Justin was the more experienced one, so if Gregory wasn't anxious about the forthcoming event, Justin had no reason to be either.

After a bit, Gregory stuck out his weapon in front of Justin, beseeching him to stop. Justin did so and looked at him inquisitively. Gregory nodded lightly down the path slightly, and Justin looked in that direction. There he saw the hulking form of the beast at rest.

"All right, we need to rouse it," Gregory said in a low whisper.

"How do you suggest we do that?" Justin replied in kind, gripping his wand tightly.

"We should be gentle at first, but then retreat quickly so we can get back into position for Alex to come in from behind," Gregory explained.

"That sounds like a plan," Justin replied. Gregory took his trident and tapped the monster gently on its long flank. It stretched and grunted slightly, then began to get up. Justin and Gregory stood there, frozen still for a moment, until it turned toward them and spotted them.

"Run!" Gregory called, and Justin followed suit.

When they passed by Alex's old position, Gregory called out again. "Attack!" he said. He and Justin swiftly turned around, and Justin cast _Light_, forcing it as close to the ogre as he could. The ogre growled at the sudden burst of brightness. When it was lit, they could see better how it was armed.

"Oh shit!" Gregory cried. "He's got a spear!"

Justin had played enough D&G to know that ogres usually carry clubs. One that carried a spear was usually more deadly because it was a much more precise weapon. Fortunately, at the moment it was flailing rather erratically, and easy to avoid.

"Now, Alex!" Gregory called out, not letting the fact that it was carrying a spear distract him too much as he began to attack it with his pitchfork. By this time, the ogre had recovered slightly and thrust his spear at Gregory, who dodged. Unfortunately, Justin was right behind him, and the spear stuck in the wizard's shoulder.

"Jesus Christ!" he cried out in pain.

"Hold steady!" Gregory responded, while the ogre tore the spear out of Justin's shoulder, causing even more damage.

Then, just as suddenly as the attack had come, the ogre froze. His eyes glazed over and he slumped to the ground. Alex was standing behind it, pulling her ogre blood-soaked daggers out of its back. Upon seeing Justin, also on the ground and holding his shoulder, she rushed over to him.

"Oh my God, are you OK?" she cried, trying to cradle him in a way that wouldn't cause further damage or pain.

"It's just the shoulder," Justin said. "It'll be fine."

"Let's get you to Sam," Gregory said, giving Justin a hand up and supporting his weight.

Alex rushed into the Adept's hut. Samantha was currently reading by candlelight. Seeing the alarmed look on Alex's face she too adopted a look of concern.

"What happened?" Sam asked.

"There was an ogre, with a spear, and it attacked Gregory, but -"

"Gregory! Did you get your damn fool self hurt?" Sam said angrily as Gregory came in, supporting Justin.

"Not I," he replied. "The adventurer."

"Oh. Well that's good," Sam said, calming down considerably. She turned toward a cabinet and opened it, beginning to collect some herbs from it.

"So how badly is he injured?" the Adept asked.

"It shouldn't be too bad," Gregory responded, sitting Justin down on the couch. Alex sat beside him, on the side opposite of his injured shoulder. She took his hand and held it for comfort – but for whose she wasn't sure. "It's his shoulder."

"Ah, a joint can be tough, but at least it shouldn't be fatal. I see that blood loss has stopped," Sam said, examining the injury more closely. Then she turned toward her fire and took a small pot of boiling water off of it. Setting this down, she began to grind the herbs she had collected. For this purpose she employed a pestel and mortar. Then she mixed them in the pot. Finally, she ladled some out into a small pan, which she brought over to Justin.

"This may sting a bit," she warned, before dipping her hands into the pan and beginning to spread the solution on Justin's wound. He winced as she did so, and Alex squeezed his hand.

Once she finished, she wrapped a bandage around it as well as she could. "You're lucky you're a wizard! You shouldn't be hindered too much. Besides, with the ointment I've applied to it, it will heal up completely in a day or two," Sam said. Justin nodded.

"Thank you," he replied.

"Glad that's taken care of," Gregory said, leaning back in the chair he'd sat in. "By the way, Justin – when you cried out in pain you said 'Jesus Christ'? Who is that?"

"Oh, he's the most important religious figure in our religion," Justin explained. "But since we hail from so far away, you may not have heard of him."

"Ah, a bit of blasphemy always helps the pain, doesn't it?" Gregory said, smiling and chuckling.

"Always," Justin agreed. "Anyway, I suppose we should tell John and Martha that their ogre problem has been taken care of. Thank you again, Samantha," he said, standing slowly. Alex supported his weight, before realizing that she was still holding his had. She blushed and let it go.

"John? Martha?" Justin said, knocking on their door.

"Oh, come in, do come in," Martha called. Justin obliged, finding Martha in the front room. Alex followed in soon afterwards.

"We've taken care of the ogre problem," Justin said triumphantly.

"Oh, excellent," Martha exclaimed. "John, come on out here," she called back to the back room.

John came out, carrying Justin and Alex's clothes – the ones they had traded for all the stuff that they now had.

"On behalf of our whole village, we'd like to thank you by giving these back," John explained.

"We couldn't!" Alex said. "We traded them to you fair and square."

"But that was before you killed the ogre for us," John said. "You deserve it."

"I feel like that would put you out so much, though," Justin said slowly.

"With the ogre gone, we can recover it quickly," John explained, practically shoving the clothes at the two adventurers.

"All right, we'll take them," Alex said, smiling and taking her clothes from John. Justin hesitated for a moment, but then did the same.

"Thank you," Justin said.

"No, thank you!" John replied. "Now, do you have a place to stay for the night?"

"No," Justin said, shaking his head. "I figured we'd roll out our bedrolls outside somewhere."

"Why not roll them out here, in our main room?" John asked. "It would be slightly more comfortable, especially if it rains."

"Thank you again," Alex said, even now beginning to get her sleeping roll out and lay it on the floor. "You've been most hospitable."


	6. Chapter VI

**A.N.: Yeah, it's been what, 100 years since I updated? **

Justin rolled out his sleeping roll next to Alex's, closer to the door. This was an unconscious habit – he felt that being the older brother, he should be closer to danger in case anything should happen. Interestingly, this was completely the opposite of what would be effective, given the circumstances. A wizard woken up from his slumber is pretty much a sitting target, while a Shadowstalker awoken from her slumber is a fury which hell hath none like.

Justin lied down and began listening to the sound of John snoring loudly in the other room. He smiled because it reminded him of his father, and despite the volume, it helped him fall asleep.

In the middle of the night, however, he awoke with a start. Something was wrong. He'd heard something very wrong that put him on instant alert. He listened – he could still hear John's snoring, but there was something else, too. Very softly, from Alex's side of the floor, came a quiet sobbing.

"Alex, are you all right?" Justin whispered, crawling over to her. Alex jumped slightly.

"Justin," she said in a similar whisper. "I didn't know you were awake."

"I wasn't, but I think I heard you crying."

"What? That's ridiculous – you sleep through Sir Snores-a-Lot but you wake up when you hear me sniffling?"

Justin shrugged. "I only wake up for sounds when I know I need to do so. What's wrong?"

"Pfft, nothing. Just go back to sleep."

"What?" Justin snipped. "You wake me up in the middle of the night and now you're not even going to tell me what's wrong?"

"You didn't have to wake up," Alex countered.

"Yes I did," Justin insisted. "You're my little sister. Now what's wrong?"

Alex frowned for a moment, not wanting to admit defeat. But then she sighed.

"We're trapped here for God knows how long, and we don't even know if we'll be able to get back," she began, "And it's all my fault," she finished.

Now it was Justin's turn to frown. He wanted to say "I told you so" and "You should have been more responsible," because those were both true. But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to do so.

"It's OK," he opted for instead. "Everyone messes up."

"Not you," Alex said, blinking her eyes to clear them.

"Even me. Remember the time I used magic to get on the baseball team? Or the time I got a pocket elf to bite you?"

"I guess so. Nothing as big as this," she said.

"Well, that's probably because I don't take as many risks as you do," Justin said, slowly.

"God Justin, I know, I know! You're always the good one!" Alex said, beginning to get visibly agitated.

"No no! I didn't mean it like that," Justin said quickly. "Taking risks sometimes is good. I don't think I do it enough. No risk, no reward, right?"

"Wait," Alex said, trying to navigate through what Justin was saying. "You mean, you wish you were more like me?"

"In some ways," Justin admitted.

Alex sniffled, a tear rolled down her cheek. Justin brushed it off of her face, then put his fingers in her hair and began stroking it. Alex's eyes went wide.

"What are you doing?" she whispered.

Justin started. "I don't know, I'm sorry, I'll-" he said, beginning to pull away when Alex's hand caught his wrist.

"I didn't say stop."

Justin's hand began trembling a bit. He didn't know exactly what he was doing, except that he seemed to be touching his sister in a way that was slightly less brother-like than it possibly should have been. Words that Gregory had said earlier began to echo in his head, as did the minor fact that he didn't correct Gregory that Alex was "his" woman. What exactly was going on? Alex began to scoot closer to Justin, burying her head in his chest and letting him stroke her. Justin settled down comfortably and continued to pet her.

After all, Justin told himself. It wasn't like they were making out or anything, and in a lot of other cultures the way family members act toward one another was different from the social norms with which he'd grown up. There was nothing wrong with holding his little sister to console her. Even if she was sitting in his lap.

At some point, they both dozed off, to be awoken a number of hours later by the smell of something cooking. They woke up and opened their eyes - Martha was over the pot in which something was boiling and John was sitting at the table.

"Good morning dearies," she said pleasantly. Justin and Alex were startled for a moment, especially since they had fallen asleep while cuddled up with one another, but they quickly realized that John and Martha, not knowing they were siblings, wouldn't think much of it.

"You're in luck," John said as Justin and Alex came over to the table. Martha set bowls of porridge down for them, and Justin and Alex each sat down at one. John pushed over a small pitcher. "A beekeeping druid stopped in town this morning and sold us some fresh honey. He's on his way to Garm."

"Garm? Isn't that a big city?" Justin asked as he poured a bit of honey on his porridge. He then handed the pitcher to Alex, who poured a much greater quantity on her own and began to gobble it greedily.

"Yes, indeed, the capital, in fact," John answered, smiling at Alex's delight. "Fighting ogres makes her hungry, eh?"

"She did do most of the work," Justin admitted.

Alex blushed a bit. "I'm sorry. I don't know the last time I had cooked food, is all."

John nodded sagely. "Think nothing of it. Dry trail rations must get old after a while! Speaking of the trail, where are you headed next?"

"I think we're going to go to Garm," Justin responded. "Is the druid still in town? Maybe he'd let us come with him."

"I think he may be. Why don't you go down to the town hall and see if he's there. His name is Apis, and he'll be easy to spot, as he wears animal hides and has a cart full of honey out front, being pulled by a donkey."

"Thank you, John. I'll just leave Alex and our stuff here, if that is all right?"

"Certainly," the smith replied, as Justin stood up and headed toward the hall.


	7. Chapter VII

**A.N. This update is far less than 100 years later!**

When Justin reached the town hall, he knew he was in luck. There was indeed a donkey out front, chewing on some grass and looking dumb. It almost seemed to be guarding a nearby cart, that was indeed filled with clay pots, presumably with honey in them.

He entered the building and looked around. Sure enough, there was a man wearing a bear skin sitting at one of the long tables, enjoying an ale despite the time of day. Justin approached him.

"Excuse me, are you the druid Apis?" Justin asked, somewhat timidly. Although wizards were generally considered the most powerful people in any given D&G setting, druids and clerics were locked in for second, and if this druid was at all higher level than him (which was likely), then Justin was clearly talking to a superior.

"That'd be me," the somewhat stout and bulky man replied, giving a smile and setting down his ale. "What can I do for ya?"

He seemed friendly enough, though of course to be a salesman one has to be.

"Um, well, I heard you were on your way to Garm, and my s-Shadowstalker friend and I are also headed that way, so we were wondering if we could come with you."

"Oh, you must be the adventurers John and Martha spoke of! Of course you're welcome along. You do know it's a bit dangerous though, right?"

"Yes, in fact, that's why I wanted us to travel with you. There's safety in numbers, you know."

"Very true. I was planning on heading out in four hours. Is that all right with you?" Apis asked.

"That sounds fine. I'll get my party together," Justin said, rising to leave. Apis nodded and Justin went back to John and Martha's.

When he got there, he found Alex rolling up her bedroll, having finished breakfast.

"We're going to head off to Garm with Apis," Justin said to her. Alex stared at him a bit blankly.

"You know? The druid? The city?"

"Oh right! The druid Garm to the city of Apis?" Alex said. What Justin didn't know was that she actually did know it was vice-versa, but was teasing him slightly.

"No no! The other way around," Justin said. "And we leave in four hours."

Alex shrugged.

"Please, take these with you," Martha said, coming from out of the kitchen area with two small packages tied up with string. "It's got a bit of bread and jerky in it. It should tide you over for a day's hike."

Justin smiled. "You really don't have to, you know," he said, but Martha merely shook her head and shoved the package at him. He and Alex took them.

"How far is it from here to Garm, anyway?" Alex asked.

"Oh, only about three days," John said. Alex sighed, rolled her eyes and looked at Justin.

"It's really not that far, Alex. Plus we'll have a druid with us. Or more accurately, we'll be with him. And he has a cart, so it's likely we'll be sticking to roads, so the walking will be easy."

"All right," Alex said, stuffing the rest of her stuff in her pack. "What more do we have to do to get ready?"

This time, Justin shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think I can find anything more for my spell component pouch, and I have all the spells that Sam had scribed into my book. You have everything you need."

"Eh, I don't need much," Alex said, grinning.

"Yes, exactly. Well, um, John, Martha! Thanks for everything. I really don't think we could repay you properly," Justin said, almost sheepishly.

"Oh please, think nothing of it," John said, shaking Justin's hand heartily. "You've taken care of our ogre problem - that was a far bigger job than you think. We wish you luck on your travels! I wish I could come to the hall with you and have a few drinks to see you off, but I do have some work to get to."

They parted amiably, as they walked off to the main hall to find Apis and tell him that they were ready.

"I liked them," Alex said to Justin as they left.

"Hmm... don't get too attached."

"What, why?"

"There's a better than even chance that any NPC you start to like will get killed," Justin said. "In fact, if you really liked them, the best thing to do for them would be to not like them."

Alex scrunched up her brows in trying to imagine that.

"No, it's best not to think about that," Justin said, seeing what she was trying to do.

Soon they got to the hall. Apis was still sitting in the same place as Justin pointed him out to Alex. But he was no longer drinking. Now he was giving out small samples of his honey. He waved slightly to Justin when they caught one another's eye and Justin and Alex made their way over to him.

"Would you like to sample some of my honey?" he said, handing two flat sticks with globs of honey on them to the two of.

"No thanks, we've already had -" Justin started saying, when Alex grabbed them both up.

"I'll take his," she said, putting one of the sticks into her mouth and grinning gleefully while holding the other one away from everything so she didn't make a sticky mess of honey everywhere.

"So, where did you get that armor?" Alex asked. She thought it was kind of cruel to wear furs, but she wasn't going to be completely rude about it. Maybe he had a reason for it.

Apis looked sad, briefly. "That's a bittersweet tale, lass," he said, closing his eyes. After a brief moment he began to speak again.

_I was a young man, just initiated into the druidic order, and I was patrolling my stomping grounds when I heard a terrible noise. I rushed over to see what was the matter, and saw a bear lying on the ground, bleeding profusely, while three young men tortured it with spears and sticks. They turned their attention to me, but I scared them off with my druidic arts. _

_Then I turned my attention to the bear. "Who are you?" he asked. (As a druid, I can speak with animals) _

_"I am Apis, the druid," I replied._

_"You can understand me?" the bear said. "Then you must be my brother. Brother Apis, I am hurt bad."_

_"I can see that, if you hold still I'll see what I can do for you," I said._

_"I don't think you can save me, Brother. I think I'm too far gone," he replied, his breath straining. He coughed. "Oh, the pain."_

_"Eat this, then," I said, pulling a particular berry out of my pouch. "Even if I can't save you, I can take the pain away." I held the berry by his mouth._

_"I'm too weak," he said. I crushed up the berry, spreading the juice on my hand. I put it near his mouth again and he licked it off. _

_He sighed, and settled down. "Brother," he said. "You tried to protect me in life. I want to repay you in death. When I am gone, take my hide for your armor."_

_"But I wasn't able to protect you," I said. _

_"You tried. And this way, I will stay with you. All the others, they will know you as their Brother, too." _


	8. Chapter VIII

**A.N.: I had extreme writers block for a very long time, when suddenly a miracle happened, and the drive I had this chapter in-progress on crashed and burned. That means I get to start it over, and that is probably a good thing in the long run!**

Apis, Frank the donkey, Justin and Alex set out for the road ahead.

"Is this donkey your animal companion?" Alex asked. Despite having only played it once, she remembered that Druids got a kind of intelligent animal as part of their class. Justin was surprised at how much she had apparently retained, especially since she didn't play a Druid.

"Aye, yes, he's a smart-ass," Apis said, grinning. Frank gave a braying sound that one could swear was laughter. "And he kicks like a mule."

Frank brayed something.

"Oh yeah, makes sense," Apis said. "Frank reminds me that his mother was a mule."

"Wait, can that happen?" Alex asked.

"It's rare, but possible," Apis shrugged.

"So, I'm not used to these roads," Justin said to Apis. "What can I expect from them?"

"Oh, they'll be pretty quiet for a while," the Druid replied. Through some fields, some light temperate forests - though the road is cut quite wide through the forest. It's not until we get closer to the city that you really have to worry about bandits."

"Eesh, that doesn't sound safe," Alex interjected.

"I think we'll be all right," Justin said. "We have three combat-tested people right here, after all."

"I know. It doesn't sound safe for the bandits," Alex explained.

Frank did his braying chuckle again, clearly liking the sound of that.

"I like you," Alex said to Frank, reaching over to him and scratching his ears. Frank closed his eyes in pleasure.

"Hey now," Apis said, grinning. "Frank needs to keep his eyes on the road."

They continued to walk uneventfully for many hours, although the path was easy and even Alex didn't mind the pace.

As it began to get dark, Apis stopped.

"We should make camp soon," he said. "It shouldn't be too hard to find a good place. You two wait here while I look for something."

After he left, and was out of earshot, Alex spoke to Justin.

"Do you think we can trust him not to kill us and take all our stuff at night?" she asked.

"Well, we're far enough from civilization now that if he had wanted to, it'd be relatively easy for him to have killed us. Besides, we don't have stuff."

"Both are good points," she said.

They were currently traveling through an area of land that was mostly open fields of grass, but Alex managed to find a large smooth stone near the path. She took off her pack and sat down. Justin did likewise, though the stone was quite small, and this ended up in Justin and Alex having to squeeze together. Absentmindedly, Alex put her head on Justin's shoulder.

"Ugh, I'm exhausted," she said, closing her eyes.

"Well, hiking all day will do that to you," he said.

"How far do you think we came?" she asked.

Justin thought for a moment. "Maybe twenty miles."

"Wait, really? It didn't feel like that much."

"No, it wouldn't. This is kind of a strange thing of D&G. The distances they give are all screwed up. According to the manual, we should make about twenty miles in the length of time we were walking, despite that averaging out to about four point five miles an hour. Which is ridiculous."\

"We definitely weren't walking that fast," Alex said, remembering how quickly two miles an hour felt on the treadmill during gym class.

"Yeah, so I don't know which 'ruleset' prevails, here," Justin admitted.

"Maybe we should ask Apis," Alex suggested.

"Probably a good idea," Justin said. He shifted his arm, but the only comfortable place he could find to put it was over Alex's shoulder.

Around then, Apis came back .He cocked an eyebrow at the sight, but didn't think too much else of it. Despite this, Justin removed his arm from around Alex, and Alex sat up so she wasn't lying on her brother any longer.

"Ah, Apis," Justin said, standing up and feeling a bit sheepish, since he had just realized he had basically been cuddling with his sister. He tried to tell himself that it was OK, but the rationalization he had - that here they weren't really siblings - kind of worried him as well. "We were just wondering - how far do you think we've come today?"

"Oh, about twenty miles," Apis confirmed. "I've found a good place to set up, too. Follow me."

Alex and Justin stood up, picked up their packs, and began to follow Apis. He had found a small collection of trees, protecting them from the elements, at least a little bit.

They set up their bedrolls, and Justin and Apis built a fire. Alex and Justin slept close to one another on one side of the fire, while Apis and Frank slept on the other.

**A.N.: Technically, this is a bit shorter than I had wanted, but I am proud of myself` for doing this much.**


	9. Chapter IX

**A.N.: I was without Internet for about a week. In the middle of this time, I realized that this really shouldn't stop me from writing more, and without an Internet to distract me, maybe I'll get some work done!**

"Ugh," Alex said as she got up and stretched in the morning. Apis had already gone to see if he could find some fresh water. Their waterskins weren't empty, but it was always a good idea to fill up if you could find a good source. "Why am I so sore?"

"Probably just from the walking. You're not wearing heavy enough armor that sleeping it in should affect you."

"Huh?" Alex said.

"Well see, if you sleep in medium or heavier armor, you take a penalty the next day from fatigue."

"Ah, because you can't sleep well in armor?"

"Something like that. I don't know, the creators of D&G never actually tried it in real life. Mostly they wanted to make sleeping more difficult."

"Sounds annoying," Alex said. She licked her fingers and tried to pat down a tuft of Justin's hair that was still sticking up from sleeping on it. Justin smirked slightly.

Apis walked into the camp, and Justin and Alex turned to greet him. He was carrying all three of their waterskins, freshly topped off.

"The path ahead is going to start to get a bit more difficult," he explained. "But I don't think it's anything you two can't handle. We can pace ourselves."

"How is it going to get more difficult?" Justin asked.

"It transitions from mostly open fields like we've been walking in thus far to a dense forest. That means lots of brambles, branches and roots to watch out for."

"That does sound like it could be tough. I'd hate for us to slow you down," Justin said.

"It's all right," Apis reassured him. "That's the beauty of honey - it keeps. Not to mention, Frank likes to step carefully in the forest so as not to spill anything. I imagine you'll be able to keep up with anything."

Frank stuck out his tongue and brayed. Apis laughed and patted him on the back.

"Frank reminds me that the finances of the situation determined that the risk of losing any product outweighs the increased profit over time by hurrying. We worked out the math together a while ago."

"Hey look, Frank is smarter than you," Justin said to Alex. Alex stuck out her own tongue, but smiled as she did so.

"Please, Frank is smarter than I am," Apis said. "Who do you think suggested doing a risk/reward analysis of the honey in the first place?"

Frank brayed again.

"All right, all right," Apis said. "Frank and I are going to go ahead for a bit, scout out the path and all. Why don't you two finish packing up camp, and then continue along the path? We'll either find someplace to wait for you or backtrack toward you if we have to, depending on the trail conditions. Hopefully we won't have to backtrack too much, of course."

Justin nodded, fully understanding Apis. "Makes sense enough," he said.

"All right, excellent," Apis returned. He and Frank began to head for the trail. Meanwhile, Alex began to roll up her sleeping roll, and Justin began to dump dirt to put out the breakfast fire.

"It's weird," Justin said once Apis was out of earshot. "I know he said that they didn't want to backtrack if they could avoid it, but it doesn't make sense to risk having to backtrack the cart at all. Ideally, Frank and the cart should stay with us."

"Maybe he doesn't trust us with Frank and the cart?" Alex suggested.

"Could be, though I imagine Frank could take care of himself. Ah well, I'll chalk it up to not understanding the ways of the mysterious druids."

"Makes sense. Now roll up your sleeping roll," Alex commanded. Justin rolled his eyes but did as he was told. It wouldn't take too much effort, and so it was probably easier than arguing with Alex, losing, and having to do it anyway. Somehow, despite his fairly decent intelligence, Alex was still able to confuse, trick, and convince him into doing things. Much like the other people in her life, he'd learned to pick his battles.

"What do you mean, there's something weird about them?" Apis said to Frank as they walked along, Justin and Alex left behind them, still packing. "I mean, I did notice the way they jumped apart when they were snuggling up but that just means they're a bit shy, I figure."

Frank hawed.

"Well it's none of our business if they are or aren't -"

Frank interrupted him, hawing even more loudly.

"What do you mean I don't get it?"

Frank hawed again.

"You're not talking about that at all?"

Frank hawed in agreement, nodding.

"So, wait, tell me again - what's odd about them?"

Frank sighed, then delivered a short speech of braying and hawing.

"Huh, that is strange. You sure you heard them correctly?"

Frank affirmed this was the case.

"Well, I have heard vague rumors about Illumined ones. You think they might be among them?"

Frank shrugged.

**A.N.: So yeah, judging from the past few chapters, I have apparently changed my mind about "subtle Jalex angst" and decided to go for the "sledgehammer of Jalex tension" approach. I hope you will forgive me. **

**Also, I noticed something weird about this story. Previously, I felt like I had sort of two 'modes' of writing, with distinct styles. I don't have good words for them, but one is more novel-ish and the other is - well the other is basically my Holiday Special universe. This seems to fall somewhere between those, though. (Originally I had intended for it to be more like the latter, but it doesn't quite feel like it, for some reason.) If pressed, I would say that this style is more like a script - lots of dialogue. I don't particularly like doing that, except for my Holiday Specials, but I am finding myself falling into it here. Any suggestions would be well welcome!**


	10. Chapter X

**JPElles - Rather than review reply like I do to most people, this one is public because I think the public should know about it! Regarding them keeping their powers back in their universe: Alex with Shadowstriker powers would be terrifying. Justin with Wizard powers would theoretically be terrifying, but he's Lawful non-Evil. (I am unsure whether he's Neutral or Good, though I think he's Lawful Neutral, while Alex is Chaotic Neutral. I like how this shows them as sort of counterparts, two sides of the same coin.)**

**Anyway, in this chapter they meet bandits! I apologize for spoiling absolutely nothing, because everyone saw it coming.**

* * *

Alex and Justin, after having packed up camp, began to head down the path. After about five or ten minutes (neither of them could keep exact track), they saw the cart ahead of them on the path a little ways, sitting still.

"Apis must have decided to wait for us," Justin commented.

"Probably, he did say he was going to," Alex said.

"Right, yeah," Justin agreed. He felt a little stupid for having brought it up, but he had also felt like he needed to say something.

Soon enough, fortunately, Apis and Frank themselves came into view. They were sitting off the path, taking a small rest. Apis waved to Justin and Alex.

"Ah good," Apis said when they got into earshot. "Frank and I were just waiting for you."

"I hope we weren't too slow," Justin said apologetically.

"No, no, everything is on schedule," Apis replied, beginning to walk again, along with Frank.

They hiked through the forest at a decent pace, though even with a druid along it was slower than the open fields they had been in. Still, this was a rather well-traveled path, even by carts like their own. The trip was uneventful for a few hours.

After a while, Apis stopped and held up a hand, signaling everyone else to stop and be quiet. Sure enough, they all heard something from up ahead, around where the path took a turn. They couldn't see anything, both the thick foliage and the turning of the path hindering their view.

Then, without warning, Apis shot ahead. Alex and Justin ran after him. When they finally rounded the turn, they saw a large cart, three men with their hands in the air, and three men holding swords to their chests. The apparent bandits looked started when they saw Justin, Alex, and Apis.

"What's going on here?" Apis asked calmly.

One of the bandits - probably their leader - gauged his situation. Here he had a young woman who was traveling, armed, and wearing leathers. Along with that were two relatively unarmed men, one of whom was wearing a robe. Traveling these roads was dangerous, and the only reason one would not carry weapons is if one didn't _need_ them, which probably meant he was dealing with spellcasters. By the looks of it, a druid or cleric, and a wizard - or possibly a cleric of some strange god. Of course, their chosen careers could have been even more esoteric, which was just as frightening.

"Nothing sir, I... we - " the bandit abruptly stopped speaking to turn and run, deciding it was the safer option. His compatriots chose to do the same.

"Thank you," one of the gentlemen who was being held up said to Apis, Justin and Alex when the bandits were out of sight. "I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't shown up when you did."

"You shouldn't be traveling these roads without an armed escort," Apis admonished.

"Yes, we do realize that, at least now," the same gentleman said. The other two nodded. "You three seem fairly...intimidating at least," he continued. "We'll give you forty gold apiece to be our escorts."

Apis thought for a moment. "I'm all right with that if my companions are," he said, looking at Alex and Justin. The siblings exchanged a quick glance, and then both nodded.

The traveling linen merchants, as they turned out to be, paid half the fee up front. Apis began to talk to them once Frank caught up, carrying the honey cart. Since they were all in a similar but non-competing business, they had a lot of shop to talk. This was good for Alex, as well, because she had some things to discuss with Justin.

"I'm worried that these merchants might be part of a con," she said to him when Apis and the others couldn't hear. "Where we 'rescue' them, they ask for help, then in the night they make off with all our stuff."

Justin nodded, listening to her fears. "It's possible. Unlikely though, for a few reasons. The most important is that we don't have anything worth taking, especially split six ways. Except a cart of honey, which would be pretty hard to steal."

"All right, that's fair," Alex said. "What about the other reason?"

"Well, that kind of thing usually depends on how big of an ass the DM is."

"Oh. Who's the DM in this case?"

"No clue," Justin shrugged.

"You're no help," Alex said, frowning.

"Hey it's you-" Justin began.

"No no, I know, yeah," Alex said. "My fault we're here and all, blah blah blah, I get it."

"Take all the fun out of yelling at you," Justin grumbled. Alex stuck out her tongue at him.

"Besides," she said. "Isn't this like practically your dorky wet dream?"

"Ignoring that that lovely reference came from my little sister, I guess I have to admit it's kind of interesting."

"Good, I'm glad. To an extent. I still want to get out of here, and now we didn't even get any experience from killing bandits, since they ran away."

"Well, we might get some story experience."

"How would we even be able to tell?"

"Again, no idea."

"Hmph," Alex said, crossing her arms. "Well at least, can you tell me why we've only seen humans so far? I thought this game had a ton of different intelligent species."

Justin shrugged again. "Garm is a lot more cosmopolitan, I'm sure we'll see others there. I guess where we are now just has a lot of humans."

They walked on in silence for a little bit. Alex kept looking around at the surrounding forest, darting her head this way and that, taking interest in a small insect here, a leaf there.

"God dammit I'm bored!" she cried out suddenly.

"Heh, about five minutes," Justin said. "Surprised you managed to entertain yourself that long."

"It's been almost two days," Alex said. "The boredom is finally catching up to me."

"Yeah, I guess now that you're a bit more used to the walking, anyway."

"Ugh, I can't believe people do this on purpose, for fun."

"I guess they feel like it beats sitting in a stuffy office all day."

"Maybe. So how much farther is it?"

"We'll probably be there just before nightfall," Justin said, trying to remember what he could from the various sources he had - Apis himself and Justin's own knowledge of the rules and world.

Alex sighed, then brightened up. "I just thought of a way to entertain myself," she said.

"How's that?" Justin asked. Alex began poking him.

"Ow! Hey! Quit it!" Justin said. Alex refused and continued to poke him.

Frank shook his head and sighed.

* * *

**A.N.: Whee I am slow! Even after I finished a story that no one read, I managed to take another century to update this one. But at the very least, it is here, as promised!**


	11. Chapter XI

**A.N.: If I change any rules from D&D 3.5, assume it is for the sake of the story. In fact, a plot point in the next chapter is going to hinge on something that is totally made up. On the other hand, it's something that wouldn't be out of place in a game, ruled by DM fiat, so you're going to have to put up with it. Or stop reading. I don't mean that as an ultimatum, it's just the truth, if you hate it so much that it interferes with your willing suspension of disbelief you'll stop reading. As the consumer you have that choice. **

**So in this chapter, Alex and Justin make it to Garm. **

* * *

They hiked for almost the rest of the day. Near the end, Alex was beginning to get antsy because she knew they were getting close, but Justin's insistence that they would get relatively nice lodgings in the city helped her struggle through it. Eventually, and to Alex's great relief she swore she saw the forest thinning out.

"Does that mean we're almost there?" she asked excitedly.

"Yes, the forest doesn't go all the way up to the city, but it's pretty close," Apis said. The merchants also looked relieved.

They left the forest, and then walked for a few more miles before they saw their first sight of the city. It was hard to miss, even from fairly far away. There was a wall around it, but not a terribly tall one. It looked like it would be rather easy to scale. There were also many gates, but they were all open and none looked like they were guarded.

"It's a time of peace," Justin explained to Alex, who hadn't asked because she didn't care. That didn't help allay Justin's lecture on the topic. "And Garm is a very welcoming city."

They went through the gate on the main road that they were already traveling on, neglecting to take any of the offshoots. When they got through, the merchants stopped.

"This is where we part ways," the leader of them said, handing each of Justin, Alex and Apis twenty more gold coins.

"But we didn't run into any more bandits," Justin said. Alex wanted to punch him, but refrained.

"That wasn't part of the deal. We only needed to get here safely. Besides, the gentlemen we met earlier may have kept nearby and attacked us later if you hadn't stayed with us."

Justin nodded and accepted the coins. Alex, for her part, was glad to have gotten paid for no work.

When the merchants left, Apis spoke to Justin and Alex.

"I have to admit that I was originally not going to accept the money, but then I realized you two could probably use it. In fact, you could probably use my forty coin share more than I could," he said, presenting the small purse to Justin, who, surprisingly to Alex, accepted it.

"Normally I too would decline a gift, but since we do need the money, I will simply say 'Thank you,''

Justin said.

Apis smiled. "And it is now time for us to part ways as well. If our paths meet again, I shall enjoy seeing you. If they do not, please take care." With that, he headed off toward the merchant district.

When he was some distance away from them, Frank brayed and looked at Apis, who shrugged. "If they are the Illumined or not," he said. "It's none of our business. Though I suspect that if they are, we shall be hearing of them again."

Meanwhile, Alex and Justin were completely oblivious to these portents. Alex was looking at all her shiny new gold coins. Although 120 gold was not much to a high level adventurer such as Apis, it was not insignificant for those just starting out like Alex and Justin. And of course, it was much more than most people in this world ever had at once.

"So we can afford pretty nice lodging I imagine, huh?" Alex said, fully expecting Justin to reprimand her and tell her that they should be frugal.

"Yeah, definitely," he said. To her surprise it sounded like that's what he wanted as well. "Honestly, even the expensive inns are only going to cost us maybe a gold a piece, and that will include two meals and possibly even hot water. The best feature though, is safety. A higher-end establishment will be a fair enough safeguard against theft."

"But shouldn't we keep a watch anyway? What was it you said? 'The second you don't is when it happens, because the DM is an asshole'?"

"True," Justin admitted. "But that really just means 'Take precautions.' I can cast a spell that wakes me up if anyone besides us enters the room. Which, by the way, we'll probably have to share."

"For the safety reason?" Alex asked.

"Partially. Also because there will only be one room available."

"Oh, r- wait what?" Alex said.

"You'll see," Justin said, smirking as if knowingly.

Justin and Alex found a place that looked like it was fairly decent, and this was confirmed when Justin asked about the rates.

"A gold apiece a night," the innkeeper said. "But I'm afraid we only have one room available."

Alex looked incredulous, and Justin tried to hide his smug look.

"That's fine," he said, giving the innkeeper two gold coins.

Alex and Justin went up to their room, Alex glaring at Justin the whole way.

"OK, how did you know that would happen?" she said when they got in.

"It's a Dungeons and Gargoyle's trope. It always happens. I'm not even sure why, but most parties will all be in one room for safety anyway. I guess it's mostly just easier for the DM to deal with if they're all in one place, too."

Alex sighed exasperatedly. "Well, I at least want to change into my regular clothes. I can't imagine they'd be too out of place here." Indeed, they had seen many of the other intelligent beings that Alex had wondered about, and they all wore so many different anachronistic styles of dress that it would be hard to stick out if one tried. "But you're going to have to leave for that," she said, shooing him out of the room. Justin went downstairs - their fee had included two meals as he had thought, so he figured he should probably make use of his first.


	12. Chapter XII

**A.N.: In this chapter, Justin and Alex have dinner and fight over the only bed in their room. Yes, the whole chapter is dinner, then going to bed. **

* * *

Alex came downstairs in her normal, 20th century clothes, although they looked a bit wrinkled from being worn and then carried around in a lump in a pack. Despite Alex's general laziness, she rarely had wrinkled clothes - although Justin ascribed this feat to magic.

"It's your turn to change, unless you want to stay in your dress, O Mighty Dorkulus the Wizard," Alex said, giving a mock bow.

"It's actually pretty comfortable," Justin said. "I don't know why you don't wear them more often."

"Ugh, a dress that's considered flattering isn't actually comfortable. Yes, that means your dress isn't flattering."

Justin shrugged and Alex frowned. If he wasn't going to react to anything, there was no fun in teasing him.

"You should have your dinner," Justin said, sliding over a plate of food. It wasn't a hot meal, but it looked a bit better than the trail rations they'd had before. The bread was fresh and the cheese looked substantial. There were even some rather fresh vegetables. But the thing Alex was most surprised about was that there was a cup of wine.

"You're letting me have alcohol?" Alex said.

"It's common enough here, and more importantly, it's the best preservative currently available, short of magic."

She took a sip. It wasn't actually as strong as she would have imagined it to be, neither in the sting of alcohol nor the general taste.

"Hey, did you water this down!" she accused Justin.

"No, it's supposed to be that way," Justin said. "It is supposed to be a drink, after all."

Alex grumbled a bit, but drank her wine like a good little girl. She looked around the room. There wasn't nearly as much activity as she would have expected, but then again, she didn't know the common tropes of D&G as well as Justin - this could be quite normal. Not that it really mattered, she didn't particularly care to interact with any strangers at the moment. Besides which, they'd be NPCs.

The realization of this drove her to a strange conclusion. If everyone here was an NPC except for her and Justin, did that mean they didn't really exist? Were she and Justin the only ones here who were actually real people? Alex suddenly felt terribly alone.

"Justin, do you think these people really exist?"

Justin looked at her and blinked. "You know," he began. "I hadn't really considered it." He paused, thought about it for a while, and didn't like where it was going.

"I can't think of an explanation that isn't terrifying," he said. "If they are real people, then what does that make D&G? Or if some wizard made an entire dimension after this, what are these people? Magical constructs? Or worse - some sort of trapped souls? None of this is pleasant."

"Well, we're real," Alex said.

"But can we even be sure of that? What if you're the only real person? Perhaps I only exist in your mind and all my interactions with you are figments of your imagination."

"But.. why not say you're the only person and I'm imaginary?"

"I can only contextualize that from my point of view, and if I don't exist, I don't have a meaningful one. If you are real, then you are able to contextualize it from your point of view. Of course, it also means that you're coming to realize it and my interaction is the means through which you are dealing with it. What I'm saying is that neither of us, assuming the other is not real, has any meaningful way to prove it. It's what Rousseau said, _cogito ergo sum - _the only thing he knew was that he existed."

Alex furrowed her brow and tried to consider that. "But, OK, let's say I'm the only person in existence - that would mean Rousseau is wrong, he doesn't exist."

"Ahh," Justin said, nodding and pointing at his sister with his drink in his hand. "That's the rub."

Alex thought about that for a bit. "I think..." she said at last. "You should shut the fuck up. Pretty sure this is all a bunch of existential bullshit."

Justin shrugged. "Probably."

Alex frowned again. Almost unconsciously, she scooted a bit closer to Justin.

"By the way, dibs on the bed," she said.

"OK," Justin replied, continuing to focus on his food, not really looking at Alex. She chewed her lip a bit, and then she laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, still avoiding her gaze.

"Look me in the eyes and tell me that," Alex said, almost demanded.

Justin looked at her. "I can't help feeling that this mess is my fault," he said. "I know I was blaming you earlier, but I've been thinking about it since then. Spells are sometimes influenced by people in the vicinity of the casting, and if the spell you cast didn't have a specific location in mind, and you didn't have one, it might have keyed into what I was thinking about."

Alex blinked. "You were thinking about D&G?"

"It was in the back of my mind, at least. You know how it is."

"No, I can't say that I do."

Justin sighed. "Still, I think it's my fault that we're stuck here." He turned his head away from Alex again, but she grabbed his cheek and turned him back to look at her.

"Look, even if you weren't the nerdiest person on the planet, we would have ended up somewhere, and that was my fault," she said.

"But since we're here, we don't have our normal magic," Justin explained. "Had it been anywhere else, we could just flash back."

"You don't know that," Alex said. "If our magic can be taken away here, couldn't it be taken away in some other place?"

"I guess. It doesn't seem likely, though."

"Bah, this isn't the Justin I know! The Justin I know doesn't just sit around blaming himself, he gets up and fixes things! It's one of the most annoying things about you, even. You try to fix everything!"

"Hey!" Justin cried. "I'm often fixing things you've done!"

"I know. It's also one of the best things about you. And also, I can't blame you. All guys are like that. And engineers doubly so."

Justin tried to wrap his head around that. "It's one of the best things about me, but also most annoying?"

Alex shrugged. "Guys try to fix things, girls have complicated emotions. Now how are you going to fix this?"

"I can't think of any other path than to continue trying to earn enough money to contract a Gate or Plane Shift."

"Good!"

"But we're not doing that right now."

"No, and we can't, really. How long could it take to earn enough?"

"That's one of the problems. Games of D&G can skip over large spans of game time, particularly when traveling or between adventures. We probably don't have that luxury. It could take...well who knows how long? We could even age significantly."

Alex hadn't considered that, and the thought frightened her for a moment. She shook it off quickly, though. It wasn't because she didn't think it was a problem, so much as she decided not to think about it, because it wouldn't help to get both her and Justin depressed.

She stood up and walked around so that she was right in front of Justin's point of focus. Justin couldn't help but look up at her. Alex pouted and gave him her best puppy dog eyes.

"But we have to try, right? Please don't be sad, you don't want to make your baby sister sad, do you?" she said in an affected and juvenile tone, though not without a bit of irony.

Justin looked at her and sighed heavily. For some odd reason, there was absolutely no one who could manipulate Justin's emotions better than Alex. There was no one who knew him better, either. All his subtleties, how to ask and say things and the exact timing. It was difficult to explain, except that Justin didn't view "manipulate his emotions" as a bad thing. Rather it was an inevitable consequence of her being the closest person to him.

He smiled, sweetly but sadly.

"Yeah, we'll get out of here. But for now, let's finish our dinner and go to bed."

Alex smiled back, and then went back to her seat and finished up her meal. She and Justin ate in relative silence from there, but finished up quickly and headed up to their room.

Once there, Alex looked at the bed.

"I don't really want to sleep in these clothes," she said. "I'm sure it would be more comfortable than the leather armor, but I don't like sleeping in jeans. I know there aren't any game penalties, but I'd still rather not."

"I'm fine in my robes," Justin said.

"Justin," Alex said. "Give me your street clothes."

"Huh, why?"

"Your shirt is probably big enough for me to use as a nightgown," she replied.

"You're literally asking for the shirt off my back, eh?"

"Ha, very funny. Now hand it over."

Justin dug into his things and pulled out his shirt. It was kind of wrinkly, but for sleeping in, that wouldn't be a problem. He tossed it to her.

"Now turn around so I can get changed," Alex said, but Justin was already turning around at that point. He smirked as he recalled the time he got undressed with her turned around just a few feet away, although he was invisible at the time. It was vaguely uncomfortable, but admittedly, people changing in the same hotel room was not all that uncommon. So he just waited, patiently.

"All right, I'm ready," she said. Justin turned around again. Alex was wearing Justin's shirt, her jeans and bra lying on the ground. Justin tried to ignore the latter article, but couldn't help but notice it was not the style he'd have imagined. He also tried to ignore the fact that he had actually imagined anything about her undergarments. Needless to say, it was "sexier" than he'd have thought.

Actually, seeing Alex in his shirt - and really nothing else - made him feel a little awkward. Not just because, well, it was his sister wearing very little, but also because he had imagined that the first time a girl wore his clothes to bed would have been sexy. On the other hand, it couldn't have been the first time this kind of thing had happened. Justin and Alex had a long, nearly 18-year history with one another. Surely Alex had taken clothes from Justin now and then, or at least they'd gotten their clothes mixed up.

And Justin couldn't even deny that she did look a bit... cute in the shirt that was too big for her. It made her look more innocent, for some reason. Still, he was vaguely disappointed that this was the first time he'd be alone, unchaperoned in a seedy inn with a young woman wearing nothing but his shirt and the girl in question was his sister. Apparently the disappointment showed.

"Are you OK?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Justin said, trying to shake off his foul and inexplicable mood while spreading out his bedroll. Alex stepped closer to him, and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

"What's this for?" he asked as he hugged her back.

"You just seem sad."

"Ah, yeah," he said as they broke away. "Good night."

"Good night," Alex said, climbing into the bed.

Justin wondered if he shouldn't bother casting Alarm. This place didn't look too dangerous, and they still didn't have much of value. Then again, it was always better to be safe than sorry, so he cast it anyway, and then crawled up in his bedroll himself.


	13. Chapter XIII

**A.N.: I am disappointed in you guys. Decartes said _cogito ergo sum, _not Rousseau! No one gets any bonus points.**

**In this chapter, Alex and Justin wake up and (finally) visit the Wizard's Guild. No nighttime activities, sorry!**

* * *

Justin didn't awake to Grieg's "Morning", a fact which always bothered him slightly. (It's what his alarm at home played to wake him up.) But he did manage to wake up when light filtered in through the tiny window of the cheap room.

He yawned, and stretched, and turned to check on and wake up Alex. But when he did so, he found she wasn't there. Although his initial reaction was panic, he attempted to quench it. Possibly there was a perfectly good reason she wasn't present.

He checked the things in the room. His shirt was there, and Alex's street clothes were missing. This caused a great deal of relief for Justin. It probably meant that she had gotten up and gotten dressed of her own will and volition.

He picked up his coin purse, noting that Alex's was likewise missing, presumably (and hopefully) on her person. As the pittance of gold they had was really the only thing they had worth anything, he didn't feel it would be terribly unsafe to leave the rest of their possessions locked, however insecurely, in the room.

He went downstairs to the tavern level of the inn and saw that Alex was indeed eating her breakfast and dressed in her normal clothes, although they were getting even more wrinkled. Justin made a mental note to learn the cleaning spell.

Justin sat down next to Alex.

"They have fresh eggs and milk," Alex said with her mouth full. "You should get in on this."

"I suppose I should," he agreed. He remained seated for a moment and stole a small piece from his sister.

"Hey!" she cried. He popped it in his mouth, and she gave up.

"We should visit the Wizard's Guild right after we eat," he said. "At the very least, I can't think of anything else we can do at the moment."

"You're the boss," Alex shrugged. Justin got up to get his own breakfast.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked when he got back. She blinked.

"All right, I guess," she said. "Why?"

"Something seems off," Justin said. "You got up before me. And I don't feel like I slept very well."

"You did sleep on the floor," Alex reminded him.

"Oh yeah. Well, that's probably it. Plus being in an unfamiliar place is always disconcerting. I know we've been in this world or whatever for three days, but there's this nagging, strange feeling I have."

"Hmm, you're a wizard."

It was Justin's turn to blink. "Um, yes?"

"Well, don't wizards occasionally feel freddies or something?"

"Eddies? As in, the magical disturbances? I guess so. Any magic user can though, so you should be able to as well."

"Yeah but I'm a Shadowstriker. Aren't I only like, half as good at it?"

"Oh yeah, that's true. Shadowstriker levels only count as half each for determining magical sensitivity."

"Maybe you're just sensing the Wizard Guild. Take us to it with your Wizzy senses!"

They had both finished breakfast by then, so they went upstairs, collected their meager belongings, and then turned in the key. (All payment was done up front, naturally.) Then they headed toward the Wizard Guild. It wasn't necessary for Justin to orient using any sixth sense, he knew where in the city it would be, and it was in a very central location in a rather nice part of the city. It was one of the wealthiest guilds and as such, was on its own plot of land with gardens and a tall iron fence. The fence gates were opened, however, as the guild welcomed visitors - after all, anyone powerful or clever enough to pose a physical threat to the guild wasn't going to be hindered by some fences.

The main doors opened up into a brief hallway with more doors on the end that opened up into the public section of their library. Their collection of scholarly works went well beyond the magical, and much of the reason visitors were interested in the guild was for this collection of books. (Yes, the Wizard Guild was very progressive in its ideas of public access libraries, though hadn't invented the idea of a lending library. Or rather they thought about it and decided it was a bad idea. And yes, there is a printing press, because magic! All of this was explained to Alex by Justin at one point or another, but was probably more or less forgotten.)

When they arrived, they were greeted in the receiving hall by an apprentice wizard. He was dressed much like Justin.

"Ah, greetings," he said. "My name is Francis. How may I help you today?"

"Hello, Francis," Justin said, glaring at Alex not to giggle at his name. "I'm Justin and this is Alex. We have come to inquire about hiring a spell to be cast for us."

"Ah excellent," said the apprentice, pulling a ledger from a shelf and taking it over to a small podium. "That's a fairly common request. What spell is it?"

"We have been stranded on this plane through a magical accident. We need a Plane Shift or Gate spell to get us back."

Francis looked up from his ledger. "I'm afraid that's beyond our more commonly cast spells. It is likely to be fairly expensive."

"Yes, I realize this," Justin said. "I even have to admit, we do not have the funds available now. We need to know how much it will cost us so we can earn the money."

"You are definitely going to have to speak to one of the more powerful wizards about that. In the meantime, you could get a discount as a guild member. Do either of you practice the arcane arts?"

"Both of us, in fact. I'm a Wizard myself, and she is a Shadowstriker," Justin explained. Despite being called the Wizard Guild, it was actually open to all arcane casters.

"I thought you might be," Francis said. "Now if you will follow me, I will introduce you to Jack - he might be the wizard to answer your query."

Justin and Alex followed Francis. They went into the library and up a flight of stairs that lead to a balcony area that surrounded the level below, with an opening into it. It had more shelves of books and scrolls on it, and had a wall that coincided with the wall of the floor below. It was a rather common library design, which Alex would know if she ever spent any time in them.

Francis pulled out a key as they approached a door on this second floor that led away from the library. He opened the door to reveal a small sitting room.

"Please make yourselves comfortable while I fetch Jack for you," Francis said before wandering off.


	14. Chapter XIV

**A.N.: Arcane Smith is not the same as a Runesmith from Races of Stone. As far as I know, there isn't such a class as an Arcane Smith. Much like there isn't a Shadowstriker. **

* * *

After a while the door opened, and a short, stocky man walked in. Justin, and even Alex, immediately recognized him as a dwarf - the intelligent humanoid creatures from Norse myth, albeit with much influence from Tolkien. They are distinguished by a human with dwarfism in their exact build, structure, and proportions - for example they actually tend to be a bit _taller_ than humans with the disorder. Other than that, much of their culture is a caricatured version of a barbarous Norseman - drunk, gruff, belligerent and bearded. More modern fantasy fiction, including some campaign settings for Dungeons and Gargoyles, have given them a treatment closer to Tolkien's version, where they have a long, deep and noble history.

The Dark Forgotten Land of Nurb-Rom is not one of those settings.

"Greetings, my name is Jak Thundersmith, but most people call me 'Jack,'" he said, introducing himself to Justin and Alex. Once they had returned the introductions, he had a seat.

"So you need a quote on a Gate or a Plane Shift?" he said, getting almost immediately down to business. "That depends on which plane you need to travel to."

"Er," Justin said. He should have, but didn't, see this coming. "There's a problem because I don't actually know what the plane is called," he said, looking sheepish.

"That's all right," Jack said. "Makes sense, really."

Alex and Justin exchanged a glance. "Er, really?" Justin said.

"Well yeah - if you're from a different plane it's likely you call it something different than we do, and unless it's a really commonly traversed one - which you probably wouldn't need a Gate or Plane Shift to - you wouldn't know what we call it."

"Yes, that's a good point," Justin said. "There's just a small problem. We don't really have a name for our plane either. See, back where we're from, most people don't know that magic exists. Even of those who do, the only plane they regularly travel to is the Astral Plane. So we didn't really have a name for it."

Jack chewed his lips a bit. "All right, can you describe anything else about the plane?"

Justin inhaled. He fully expected Jack to look at him like he was crazy when he was done, but he began to explain just about everything he could - about technology and history and geography. He left out the fact that to him, this was just a game, because he still was uneasy about the whole subject and wasn't sure he wanted to be seen as _that_ crazy.

To Justin's surprise, Jack seemed to take it all in stride. When Justin finished, Jack sat back.

"Well, I'm afraid that I don't know of that plane, but there is another wizard in our guild who may, Iohannes Isaac Myrdd. I'm sorry he couldn't have been sent first, but he's on sabbatical right now, and, er, to be honest, we don't know when he'll be back."

Alex and Justin's faces sank.

"Let me go check to see if I can find out anything else about him - maybe someone else has heard from him lately," Jack said, trying to console them. "And I'll send someone in with some tea."

Jack left with that promise, and Alex turned to Justin.

"On the bright side, we probably can't afford the spell yet anyway," she said.

"Yeah, that's true," Justin agreed.

"Also, I didn't know wizard was a good choice for a dwarf," she continued.

"Not usually. I mean, it's not a terrible choice, but it isn't the best choice, which in some groups amounts to about the same thing. However, there are some interesting options available to dwarven spellcasters, like the Arcane Smith class."

"Is it in one of those obscure supplement thingies?"

"Yeah yeah," Justin said.

"Too many of those damn things," Alex said.

"So I've heard."

They were interrupted at this point by a servant bringing in a tray of tea and small cookies. They thanked her and told her they needed nothing else when she asked if she could bring them anything. After she left, Justin poured Alex and himself some tea, while Alex tucked into the cookies.

Jack walked back in before too long.

"The best I can do is tell you that he was going to visit his friend, The Jester King. Unfortunately, attempts to reach The Jester King at his residence have failed. See, he has this crystal ball he bought from us that lets him communicate at a distance, so we tried to contact him through it, but he's not responding. It's nothing to be surprised at - he's frequently busy."

"I know of The Jester King," Justin said. Alex looked slightly surprised, although not terribly. She quickly realized that Justin was the kind of huge nerd who would know any obscure character of the game. "Why don't we go ask him in person?"

"I suppose that couldn't hurt," Jack said. "If we manage to get a hold of him later on we'll let him know to expect visitors. You know where his manor is?"

"Yes, I know it fairly well."

"Excellent!" Jack cried. "Can I help you with anything else today?"

"No thank you, Jack. We are grateful," Justin said.

With that, they all parted, and Justin and Alex headed off toward the market district to prepare for the trip.

"I am a bit confused," Alex said once they were once again wandering the city streets. "Why are we visiting this Jester King person in person?"

"The Jester King enjoys visitors. He'll be likely to entertain us for an afternoon."

"Right, but all we need to know is where that John guy is."

"Huh, John?" Justin said, slightly confused.

"Ugh I don't remember his full name but it was something with John right?"

"Iohannes? Oh, yeah. Yes, but The Jester King might know."

"I know, but John could come back by the time we get to The Jester King. Or be entirely elsewhere. Wouldn't it make more sense to stay here while the wizards keep trying to contact him on the crystal ball?"

"Ah, I see what you're having a problem with," Justin said. "Yes, that would make a lot more sense. But you see, this is a quest hook."

"A quest hook? Is that like a thing that gets you to follow whatever dumb plot the DM has set up?"

"Er, yes."

"And you take the obvious bait because you're _supposed_ to?"

"That's about right."

"Why can't the DM write something where it makes sense for the characters to follow whatever? Or figure out what they're likely to want to do and write to that?"

"It depends on the group. I think the majority of groups have trouble finding a bunch of people who are _that dedicated_ to forming an entire story. The plot of a D&G game suffers from some logistical problems like keeping the group together and entertained. A few conveniences are agreed upon but left unspoken, like not being a dick and taking the goddamn plothooks so the party stays together. It flexes suspension of disbelief, sure, but our group always leaned toward the 'beer and pretzels' mentality."

"You don't drink."

"No, I know. But that's the term for a gaming group that are all friends, usually from before the game got together, and is generally laid back and casual."

"Ha, you, laid back and casual."

"Yeah yeah, I know."

They stopped at a stall and Justin handed over some coin for some trail rations.

"Another strange thing," Alex said. "Wouldn't crystal balls like The Jester King had way change the whole world? Isn't fast communication like way important to keep together nation states and that sort of thing?"

"Eh it's - wait, since when do you know anything about infrastructure?"

"Mr. Laritate _loves_ the Pony Express."

"Ha, yeah, he does, doesn't he? But like I was saying. That's another one of those things you have to kind of ignore. To be fair to the setting, it goes along with full knowledge that it is introducing these kinds of 'technomagical revolutions' with little change to the accepted tropes. I mean most D&G settings are already an anachronistic mishmash of Medieval to Renaissance culture and technology, it's not going to break down _further_ to throw in stuff from the Information Age. And The Jester King's house is rather Victorian in design, itself."

Alex was pretending to snore. Justin smacked her playfully and they continued shopping.


	15. Chapter XV

**A.N.: Ick, I got far too far behind on my Nanowrimo novel. One of these days I'll finish one and when I do...**

**Anyway, my failure is your gain! I am going to devote any remaining writing energy to more chapters of this. **

**So in this chapter, Justin and Alex finish preparing for and start out on their next journey.**

* * *

After a day of shopping, Justin and Alex went back to the same inn they had stayed at the previous night, since they had paid on a day-to-day basis. In their room they drank some flasks of weak wine and went over their supplies.

"So my spell component pouch should suffice for most of the spells we'll need. The trip to The Jester King's manor may get us into a random encounter, so we should be prepared."

"Ah yes, murder, our strongest skill," Alex said.

Justin sighed slightly. "I know, I know, it's a weird convention and slightly unsettling if you think about it too hard, but Dungeons and Gargoyles evolved out of a warfare game, so it was natural to focus on combat tactics."

"Well, I have my stilettos and leather armor, bag of caltrops, some smoke bombs, and some throwing knives. Is that enough combatyness?"

"Probably. Other than that and rations, we have some rope, firemaking materials, camp tools, and our sleeping rolls. That should be good."

"Sounds like it to me," Alex said. "I'm going to get ready for bed," she continued, standing up.

She turned her back to Justin and took off her shirt. Justin felt that this was a bit awkward, as she hadn't asked him to leave or even turn around himself, and he could see her almost bare back as she unhooked her bra and began to shrug it off. He looked away at this point, terribly embarrassed and not just a tad uncomfortable. She had apparently decided that this was private enough.

As to why he should be embarrassed and uncomfortable, he wasn't sure. It was just his sister, wasn't it? He'd seen her in various states of undress before, accidentally. It was hard to avoid when living with someone. Then again, he was equally embarrassed and uncomfortable then, too.

"Justin," she said. He looked up. She was still standing with her back mostly toward him, but she had turned slightly to look at Justin. "Could you toss me your shirt?" she continued, calmly.

Justin fumbled for his shirt. He was glad, really, to have an excuse to look away again as he had seen a bit more of her than he would have cared to admit. He picked it up and tossed it over to her, trying not to look. This was evident when his aim was awful and it landed draping across her shoulder, but she picked it off and slide it over her head. She then took off her jeans, and Justin, although trying not to look, was somehow having a bit of trouble with it. Fortunately for him, his shirt was long enough that he only caught a glimpse of that which was below it.

Once she was done dressing for the night, and acting like it was absolutely no big deal to do that in front of her brother, she turned around to face him.

"Goodnight Justin," she said, giving him a hug that Justin couldn't decide was too long or too short.

Justin woke up the next morning feeling, of all things, guilty. There wasn't much to which he could attribute it to other than, perhaps, the previous night's incident of Alex undressing in front of him. That really shouldn't make him feel _guilty _- the previous night's feelings of embarrassment and discomfort made far more sense. The only reason he'd feel guilty is if he had been slightly excited about the circumstance, and the fact that he was feeling guilty made him feel a bit queasy, as well.

Perhaps fortunately, Alex was once again up before him, having left the room. He went downstairs after her, finding her at her "usual" spot.

"Are you all right?" Alex asked him.

"I don't even know," Justin admitted, taking a seat. Alex put her palm on his forehead.

"You do feel a bit warm," she said. "I hope you're not coming down with something."

"I think I may be sick, but I don't think I'm ill."

"Eh?" Alex said.

"Well expect perhaps mentally," Justin said.

"Nothing we didn't already know," Alex replied, smirking. Justin, for one, was glad she hadn't pursued that. He wasn't sure why he even said that, but it felt like something he sort of needed to confess, somehow.

"The hike should take us about two days, and we'll have to find a place to camp overnight in the middle of that," Justin said.

"Nothing we haven't done before," Alex said.

"This time we won't have a druid to guide us," Justin reminded her.

"I think we'll be fine."

"Probably," Justin agreed. "We might as well head out as soon as possible."

With that, they both quickly finished up their breakfasts and gathered all their belongings.

They headed out of the city in a different direction than the one they had come in. Alex had no idea where The Jester King lived, but she trusted that Justin could orient himself. Not only would Justin know, but his character would, which was possibly the more important thing. On the other hand, thus far they had been able to metagame fairly well, which they had been using to their advantage.

The first part of the trip itself was extremely uneventful. The kind of thing that, if one were writing about it, it would only have a sentence or two dedicated to it. The terrain was slightly rockier than they had experienced before, but it gradually gave way to rolling hills. Justin and Alex made their camp someplace at the top of one of these hills as it grew dark, with shrubbery used to fuel their fire.

"We find ourselves sitting alone by campfires a lot," Alex remarked.

"We were adventurers before we were ever sucked into a D&G game," Justin said.

"Speaking of, we didn't have a random encounter today."

"We probably will tomorrow, then. I'd bet the bank."

"What if we're attacked in our sleep?"

"I'll cast an alarm spell. If anything dangerous approaches our camp, it'll wake us up, at which point it'd be pretty much like any other fight where we don't have the initiative."

"Do you think we can handle it?"

"Yeah, we'll be able to," Justin reassured her.

She trusted him on that as she and Justin laid out their sleeping rolls next to one another.


	16. Chapter XVI

**A.N.: Starting out with an author's note every chapter is self-serving in a way, but I find that it centers me. For some reason I just can't start writing the chapter itself, it needs a prologue of sorts.**

**In this chapter, you finally get some _action_.**

* * *

Justin awoke with a start, sweating. It wasn't his alarm spell, as that would have had an entirely different feeling to his sudden awakening. This was most likely totally natural causes, perhaps from the dream he was just having, the dream that even now was fading rapidly.

He felt something heavy on his chest, only to see that Alex had laid her arm across him unconsciously, perhaps huddled together for warmth or comfort. He delicately moved her off of him, his heart still racing from his excitement. Once done, he stood up.

As he began to walk away from the camp, Alex stirred. "Justin," she said groggily. "What are you doing? Come back to bed." This wasn't what he had wanted to hear - a small flood of confused images from his dream deluged him.

"I need some water," Justin replied. "There was a stream not too far from here, I'll refill my waterskin."

"Be careful," Alex murmured, although since they didn't have much need for Justin's magic that day, he wouldn't be totally defenseless if something attacked him.

When he got to the stream, he drank from his waterskin and breathed deeply, calming himself down. He couldn't keep denying it, if his dreams were any indication he was becoming attracted to Alex. Then again, he had studied a bit of dream interpretation, and incest dreams didn't necessarily mean attraction to the object of them.

The guilt and excitement he felt when she undressed in front of him the other night was harder to rationalize, as was his jealousy when he thought Gregory was flirting with her.

The fact that she changed in front of him, he wouldn't doubt she was doing just to make him uncomfortable. But he doubted she intended to elicit the reaction Justin feared he was manifesting. What would she think? She'd be disgusted, that's what.

But why'd she keep hugging him goodnight? Certainly, the first one made sense, as Justin had been a bit down earlier that evening. But did she think he continually needed such reassurance? Maybe - they still weren't out of here.

He knew that he just wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be OK, but he wasn't sure that was out of a sick incestuous desire or a more wholesome brotherly one.

Another angle occurred to him, suddenly. One that made him feel far better than he had been. His _character_ wasn't related to Alex's _character_. Maybe these were _in-character_ feelings. After all, he didn't know what the rules related to such things would be, since he'd never been sucked into a D&G game before. Would his motivations and feelings always prevail, or would his character's sometimes get muddied up into it?

It was something to consider as a possibility. Although they hadn't written their characters to be involved romantically, it could be that now his character was becoming attracted to hers because of their current proximity. And Alex _was_ extremely attractive.

Er, her character, that is.

Justin decided his thoughts could be rationalized that way, and went back to his sleeping roll, whereupon Alex immediately cuddled up next to him again.

Morning broke without their alarm spell going off. Justin and Alex woke up around the same time, which was a first for Justin in a while. He was a bit tired, to which he attributed his restless sleep, but he'd be all right, since he wasn't fatigued enough for any die penalties.

They began to walk once more. After a few hours, Justin was beginning to get nervous.

"I wish we'd get get our random encounter over with," he said.

Alex peered out over the hills with a hand over her eyes. "I think you might be getting it soon," she said, pointing off in the distance at what looked like some blurs. They were growing quickly, though.

"Oh lovely, something is coming at us. The best we can do is prepare now, and stay on high ground." They were already at the apex of a hill, so they readied themselves for combat.

Soon enough, they saw what the blurs were - huge wolves, larger than any wolf on earth naturally gets. They were rushing at the pair, saliva dripping from their ravenous mouths of knife-like teeth. It looks like there were only three of them, but Justin was nervous enough about that, since that may be beyond their capabilities. He didn't share this with Alex, however, as he knew that if they couldn't take them, it would be difficult, possibly impossible, to escape the wolves.

As soon as they were in the proper range, Justin cast a spell. A foamy substance flew out of his hands and covered the area the wolves were about to run into. They began to lose their footing, and one of them fell. Alex took this opportunity to throw her caltrops into the same area. The two wolves that hadn't fallen ran up to Justin, one going around him in a wide berth. The other was right next to him, and lunged at Justin, who attempted to twist out of the way. He was in luck, and the wolf only caught a mouthful of cloth from his robe.

Alex approached this wolf, standing with it between her and Justin, and sank her daggers into the beast's back, activating her Death Strike. It howled in pain, but did not die. Meanwhile, the wolf that was encircling Justin attacked him from behind, and Justin couldn't react in time not to get bit. The wolf only grabbed some outer flesh, so it wasn't immediately dangerous, but Alex cringed to see her brother in pain.

The wolf who had fallen over had stood up and began to approach Alex on the other side.

"Close your eyes!" Justin cried. She did so, and Justin shot a beam of colored light out of his hands, managing to keep his concentration even as the two wolves flanking him managed to get attacks off in the wayside.

When Alex opened her eyes, she saw that the wolves on either side of her were blinking their eyes rapidly and unable to take much action otherwise. She used this opportunity to attack the wolf she had previously struck in the back of the neck, and as she removed her blade the creature fell to the ground and soon stopped struggling.

The still-alive wolf struck by the spell was still trying to recover, but the one that was behind Justin attempted to strike again, although this time he managed to avoid the attack altogether. He fired a ray of magical energy at it, and it yelped in pain. Meanwhile, Alex turned her attention to the other wolf, who had now recovered.

Both of the wolves attempted to attack their respective mark, drawing blood on both Alex and Justin. Alex, realizing they should focus on one target at a time, leapt out of the way of the wolf in front of her and nimbly ran around to the other side of the wolf attacking Justin. She attacked it from behind, drawing blood once more.

The wolf that had previously been attacking Alex was slightly confused, but it saw Justin as the next most obvious target.

"Great," Justin said, dodging another attack. "Once again they're all on me."

"You always were a dog person," Alex remarked. She used her Shadowstriker spell of darkness to envelop the other wolf, whom they could hear struggling in vain to find his mark.

Justin hit their current target with another spell, felling it. Alex dispelled her darkness and the remaining wolf, seeing that it was outclassed, turned tail and fled.

Justin and Alex collapsed, breathing heavily. Both were hurt, although Justin moreso.

"Why didn't we buy healing potions?" Justin said, gritting his teeth through the pain, surprised he was feeling it.

"You're an idiot," Alex replied. She dug into her sack and pulled out two small vials. "I remembered them." She gave one to Justin and drank one for herself.


	17. Chapter XVII

**A.N.: I bet that wasn't the action you thought I meant, eh, eh? See, it's misdirection, a trick as common to authors as it is to the stage magician. An excellent writer is very much like a wizard, conjuring emotions that feel genuine, despite being illusory, and leaving you in wonder and awe.**

**I wish I were one of those.**

**In this chapter, Justin and Alex meet the Jester King. (Capitalizing 'The' in his title is optional!)**

* * *

Justin was hurt enough that a single healing potion didn't mend all his wounds. Alex had to dress some of the rest of them, though fortunately the Heal skill is on her class skills.

"Hold still," she said as she wrapped a bandage torn from Justin's robe firmly around Justin's arm. (They probably should have thought to bring some sort of bandages, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.) Fortunately it was just a flesh wound.

"How's it feel?" she asked, chewing her bottom lip.

"It kind of tingles a bit," Justin said.

"I... don't know if that's good or bad."

"Eh, it's probably fine," Justin said. "D&G rarely has lasting injuries."

"There seems to be more detail to this world than a regular D&G game, though," Alex pointed out.

"That may be true. I guess it's slightly different when it's a separate, completely immersive plane."

"So I thought giant wolves lived in forests," Alex said.

"They may have been semi-domesticated by some band of goblins nearby," Justin said.

"We can't run into them, right? We already had our encounter."

"I don't know," Justin said. "Sometimes, you get thrown for a loop. Let's just try to get away quickly, but remain vigilant."

Justin and Alex hurried along at a quickened pace, attempting to avoid any goblin patrols that might (or might not) have been scouring the area. Once they got out of the moorland and into another temperate forest, Justin said that it would probably be all right for them to take a break.

"We're close to the Jester King," Justin said. "He lives in this forest, and we've made good time."

"That's good," Alex said. "When will we be there?"

"Probably just after nightfall," Justin said.

They didn't rest long, since they didn't want to be traveling in the dark too long, and it gets dark quickly in the thick foliage. Still, they maintained their vigilance, and eventually they came to the clearing where the Jester King lived.

The manor was larger than Alex would have thought it could have been, hidden in a forest. At points the forest encroached closely to the domicile. In a way it was almost dark and foreboding, and Alex wondered what kind of ironic name "Jester King" was anyway.

Still, she didn't say anything as she and Justin approached the large main doors. Justin knocked and a servant answered it.

"May I help you?" the servant said as dismissively as possible.

"I'm Justin and this is Alex. We have come from the Wizard's Guild in Garm. They have been trying to contact the Jester King."

"I see," the servant said. "Please come in for a moment."

They followed the servant into a small but pleasant drawing room and asked to have a seat. It reminded Justin and Alex of the waiting room in the Wizard's Guild, except this one was more finely furnished. And this was just for the random guests who came to call on the Jester King. They waited by the fire as another servant came in with another tray of tea and crackers.

"Are we always served tea?" Alex asked.

"It's customary," Justin shrugged.

Eventually, a very well-dressed man came into the room. Fitting into the anachronism, he was dressed like a fine Victorian gentleman.

"Mr. Justin, Ms. Alex," he said, shaking both their hands in turn as they stood to greet him. "I am the one known as the Jester King. I have been told that you wished to see me on behalf of the Wizard Guild in Garm?"

"Indeed," Justin said. "They have been unable to contact you via your crystal ball."

"Oh drat," the Jester King said. "There's a special stand I'm supposed to put that in to replenish its magical energies... it must have been drained and I forgot to do that."

Justin and Alex exchanged a glance. This whole thing was instigated because, essentially, he forgot to charge his phone.

"We wanted to know if the wizard Iohannes Isaac Myrdd was here, or if not, where he went," Justin explained.

"Hmm? Oh yes," the Jester King said. "John was by a while ago. I'm afraid he's not here at the moment. But please, we may discuss that later. Won't you stay the night, at least? It's rather dark out."

"Ha, he called him John," Alex said to Justin in a low voice, who tried to ignore it.

"We would be honored to be your guests," Justin answered.

The Jester King wasted no time in mobilizing his servants to prepare two rooms for Justin and Alex, who were both glad to get their own room for a bit. The protection and wealth of the Jester King promised to make this one of the better nights of sleep they'd get in a while. Unfortunately, the Jester King himself was busy with the preparations, leaving Justin and Alex to their own devices in the parlor, having a light meal of fancy breads, meats, cheeses and fruits.

"Why do they call him the Jester King?" Alex asked Justin. "He doesn't seem very jester-like. Or king-like, for that matter. He's known for his large library, isn't he? Why not the Library King?"

Justin grinned. "Why don't you ask him yourself? I imagine you'll have a chance to."

"Are you sure that's a polite question?" Alex asked incredulously.

"I am sure the Jester King won't mind," Justin said.

"God damn you're cryptic," Alex said, rolling her eyes.

"It will be a much better answer coming from the horse's mouth itself, so to speak," Justin said.

"Must everything be a mystery?"

"Actually, interesting you should say that," Justin said. "I've found that there is often a mystery element to most D&G games. Whether you're trying to track down where the villain is, or even trying to figure out who it actually is."

"But you do know! And you're not telling me!"

"Ah yes," Justin said, continuing to smile. "Reminds me of the time I played the character secretly in league with the villain and sabotaged the whole effort. Fun stuff!"

Alex glared at him.


	18. Chapter XVIII

**A.N.: There was something important I had to mention here. But evidentially, not important enough to remember.**

**In this chapter, you still don't figure out why the Jester King is called what he is called. And I pull out my comma shaker and shake some commas over the page.**

**Shake, shake.**

* * *

Justin awoke with a start again. He calmed down quickly as he took in his surroundings and remembered that he was in the care of the Jester King. He quickly checked to see if Alex was all right, only to remember that they were sleeping in different rooms, for once. His impulse to check on her was habitual, perhaps even instinctive. But he didn't have to bother her as he knew, once he regained more of his senses, that she was fine.

Besides, the dream he'd been having about her was very confusing.

He tried to shrug it off and decided that a walk, or possibly some more water, might do him good.

He got up and went downstairs, wandering the large manor. As he passed by the study, he saw light coming from the doorway. He knew that most of the fires would be maintained by the night staff, lest the building get too cool, but they were supposed to be kept low. He cautiously opened the door to the study, and saw the Jester King sitting by the fire with a tray of some drinks set up next to him. Some gas lamps were also on, another symbol of the prevalent anachronisms. To be fair, they weren't terribly out of place among the rather Victorian decor and in fact, entire attitude and mannerism of the house and residents thereof.

"Oh, Mr. Justin," the Jester King said, looking up at him.

"I'm sorry sir," Justin said, realizing he shouldn't have barged in like that, or in fact been wandering around this man's house at all.

"It's no trouble at all, please, do come in."

Justin decided to obey, shutting the door quietly behind himself.

"Having trouble sleeping, are you?" the Jester King continued.

"Yes sir," Justin admitted, having a seat on one of the other comfortable armchairs near the tray.

"Insomnia has plagued me of late as well," the Jester King said. "Would you like some cider?" He offered Justin a mug of hot apple cider, which Justin took gratefully.

"What troubles you these nights?" the Jester King asked.

"Nightmares," Justin said, not caring to go into detail. He headed off further questioning by adding "Nightmares I forget soon after waking, but still can't get back to sleep." He did not want to admit what he did remember of them - it would be far too much to explain.

"How about you, sir?" Justin said.

"Ah, it's not quite so much a trouble as... a curiosity. As though I'm on the brink of an epiphany, yet it is ever out of reach. Or perhaps, I had the thought earlier and can't quite remember it. Or some mixture of the two - I had a thought that put me close to the epiphany, but I can't remember what it is."

Justin tried to wrap his head around what the Jester King was saying. When he did, he could empathize.

"I hope you come up with it soon," he said.

"Thank you," the Jester King said, smiling. "Tell me, do you enjoy parlor games?"

Justin hesitated. There were a variety of parlor games, some of which he did not care for. "What sort of parlor games?"

"Have you heard of storytelling games?"

"Storytelling games?"

The Jester King took a sip of his cider. "I met a man, a while ago, who introduced me to the most peculiar sort of game. I am a big fan of games, you know. Parlor games, board games, card games. Even," he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper "the occasional dice game. Well this man introduced me to a game that was like telling a story, together."

Justin tried to keep his gaze steady, but the revelation surprised him, and for some reason, it also frightened him, because he thought he knew where the Jester King was going with this.

"In this game one person would take on the role of the 'Narrator', and the other players would take on the roles of various characters, usually the heroes of the story. The players would describe what their heroes are doing, and the Narrator would explain how the supporting cast would react to them. Are you following what I mean so far?"

"I think so, yes," Justin said, his mouth feeling dry.

"Good good, because it gets a bit complicated from here. The reactions - of both the supporting characters and the environment itself - wasn't entirely arbitrarily left up to the Narrator. It was at least partially dictated by a number of rules. Some of the rules governed what the heroes could attempt to do, and others what happened to the environment and the other characters."

"I see."

"And there was an element of random chance, as many of the outcomes would be determined by the toss of a die - but not just the now-ubiquitous cube-shaped ones. He had an array of ancient geometric figures. Chief among them was the icosahedron."

Justin felt almost like he was struggling to breathe, and he absolutely had to be pale. He drank some cider to try to refortify himself. He didn't know why it should bother him, but he had a theory.

"Does...does your near epiphany involve this game?" Justin asked, delicately.

"Why yes, exactly! You see, this rule book this man brought went into great detail about the world. This makes great sense - imagine how fascinating it would be to tell stories of great wars and adventures of the past. And it also went into the future, which is also sensible - it is fun to speculate about what may happen. But there was something else very peculiar. It was as if the rules themselves were describing the fundamental nature of the universe, rather than just being 'gameable abstractions', as the fellow put it. And that... that is what I am currently wondering about."


	19. Chapter XIX

**A.N.: Mkay yeah, I haven't updated as soon as y'all would like. But see now I am writing. Well OK you won't see this until some time after it is written. **

**So in this chapter, Justin tries to make sense of what the Jester King told him.**

* * *

"This book - did it accurately predict future events?" Justin asked timidly.

"Not yet, anyhow. None of the events listed when I read the book were yet to come. It wouldn't surprise me terribly much if they did occur of course, as the author was clearly a scholar of history and would be likely to be able to predict future events based on the past and the current social environment."

"That's true," Justin admitted. On the inside, however, he was scared. If, as he surmised, the Jester King had read the Dungeons and Gargoyles sourcebook detailing this world, and the in-game year was what Justin had learned it was, there were some events to come that were detailed in the book that no one could predict.

Then again - this was a world where magic was prevalent, known, and accepted. Divination, although often limited (so as not to make any mystery too easy!) was not unknown. So it shouldn't jar people too much to have a "book of prophecies" as it were.

The more disconcerting thing, however, was that the Jester King seemed to be on the verge of realizing that he was in a _game_, that his actions were dictated by the very same rules he had read about. If he realized that this was true, it could lead to any of a number of responses. It could terrify the denizens of this world, leading to some of the same philosophical questions that he and Alex wrestled with earlier - only worse, as the people themselves were the NPCs of this world. It could also lead to massive metagaming. Although real players attempt to curtail their own metagaming (despite a bit of it being inevitable) as a sort of gentleman's agreement, the NPCs of a given world would naturally have a greater stake, and may abuse the rules to their utmost capabilities. Justin was unsure if this would actually make a D&G world any more ridiculous, but he was certain that at least at first, it would be chaotic and tumultuous and not something he wished to be around for.

"Who was this man? Where is he now?" Justin asked, concerning the man that the Jester King mentioned introduced him to the game.

"He was a passing stranger with an interest in my library, who had heard of my reputation of hosting guests. His name was Gary, Son of Arne."

The name sounded vaguely familiar to Justin, but he couldn't place it and he wasn't sure why. Possibly it was a character in a more obscure sourcebook.

"Have you heard of the Illumined ones?" the Jester King asked suddenly.

Justin thought. He couldn't recall anything of the sort mentioned in a sourcebook so unless it was really, really obscure he thought that it was something entirely new, which alarmed him.

"No sir, I can't say that I have," Justin answered honestly.

"Supposedly they are people imbued with a special knowledge of the universe that allows them to perform at their peak capacity, and indeed sometimes it may seem beyond."

Oh gods oh gods oh no, he couldn't be going there.

"I wonder... I wonder if there's a link between this game, with how it seems to describe our actions so well, and the Illumined..." the Jester King went on.

Fuck, he was.

Justin didn't know quite what to do. He didn't want this to get out, really. But he didn't know how to stop it. Not without finding Gary, Son of Arne, at least, and demanding an explanation. The better bet would be to try to find a way out of this plane quickly, continuing on their current path. Except... suppose this was the way? What if their quest was this strange, tangled metagamey quest, and the only way they could progress to the point they could get off of the plane was to follow it? Did it have to do with the disappearance of the wizard he and Alex were currently after? That would be cruel, even by old-school Dungeon Master standards. Not to mention far, far more surreal.

Who was controlling this? So far it felt like there had to be some entity behind it all. The common tropes and motifs he could excuse as being picked up. But this, this was something extremely strange.

"Do you have a copy?" Justin asked. "Of this rulebook, I mean."

"Actually yes!" the Jester King said. He stood up and walked over to a bookshelf - they weren't in the library proper, but he still had some books around. He pulled out a book and handed it to Justin.

Justin recognized it. It was the combined book of the D&G basic rules and basic information about the Dark Forgotten Land of Nurb-Rom. He began to look through it, looking for any glaring differences between it and the book he knew, although he wouldn't be able to tell without reading it thoroughly.

"Have you discussed this with anyone else?" Justin asked. If the Jester King was willing to share so freely with Justin, it seemed possible that he had spoken of it with other guests he between times.

"No, no," he said. "I have only now begun to realize these strange things about it. Ah well, maybe I'm just so tired things are looking like things they are not."

At the mention of this, Justin himself began to grow weary. What he had just heard had overwhelmed him enough that he felt he could fall back asleep where he lay. He began to yawn, trying to stifle it but failing.

"It sounds like you yourself are conquering insomnia," the Jester King said, smiling. "Perhaps you should retire yourself once more."

"I think you are right, sir," Justin replied. "Good night."

"Good night," the Jester King said, standing and seeing him out of the room.

Justin went back up to his room. When he opened it, he saw a familiar shape in the bed.

"Justin?" Alex said, murmuring and sitting up.

"Oh damn, did I get the wrong room?" Justin said, blushing and backing out.

"No no," Alex said. "I came to find you but you weren't here. Where were you?"

"I couldn't sleep," Justin replied. "Nightmares." He especially dare not explain those nightmares to Alex. "Are you OK?"

"I woke up in the middle of the night and felt terribly frightened. I don't know why, it's silly, isn't it? I dunno, I guess I got so used to you being next to me..." she trailed off.

"You and me both," Justin said, walking up to the side of the bed. "When I woke up I tried to check to see if you were there."

"Justin?"

"Yes?"

"Could I stay here with you for the night?"

"Ah," Justin said, glad it was dark enough she probably couldn't see him blush. "Sure."

He didn't know whether this was a good idea or not, and he didn't know which of them he was more favoring by allowing her to sleep next to him. He did wonder vaguely what the Jester King or his servants would think, but then realized that he didn't care - not to mention it probably wouldn't be brought up.

He got under the covers and she, perfectly consciously, cuddled up next to him.

They were awoken the next morning by a maid saying "Rise and shine, sleepyheads!" without a hint of scorn, judgment or even innuendo in her tone. Servants were masters of their own emotions.

Justin and Alex woke up and got ready for the day without any awkwardness between them, which was strange enough. Justin began to worry that he didn't feel worried, but on the other hand, he figured that since he didn't, perhaps it meant he was over any strange feelings these dreams were alluding to. Who knew that the cure would be allowing her to sleep next to him!

As they descended to breakfast, Alex said to Justin "I still haven't asked the Jester King why they call him that."

"Oh yeah," Justin said. "Breakfast will be a good time for that."

They sat down to breakfast and began with their toast and jam.

"Jester King," Alex said when she had worked up the courage to ask her question. "Why do they call you the Jester King, anyway?"

The Jester King smiled brightly, and with a gleam in his eye he stood up.

"There is only one way to find out... and it's a long story."


	20. Chapter XX

**A.N.: Three months? Pfft, hardly my longest delay. **

**Anyway, _now_ you get to see the Jester King's story of his title.**

* * *

The Jester King began to speak, his voice became light and musical:

_It all started when I was but a boy_

_Reading and learning were my greatest joy._

_Consumed every book and all within._

_And never thought learning could be a sin._

_And as I amassed my knowledge, my wealth_

_I saw an effect on my mental health._

_For knowledge for itself for its own end_

_Tempered not with wisdom is sad, my friend._

_What was missing? How do I become wise?_

_For wisdom can come under a disguise._

_I asked every priest, all the holy men_

_But what I needed was beyond their ken._

_So I asked the philosophical ones_

_The scholars who have seen a million suns._

_But I don't think they even understood_

_What I was asking, I don't think they could._

_So I sat out by the reflecting pool_

_And decided I might as well ask a fool._

_I found a clown and told him my sad tale._

_He smiled and said I was bound to fail,_

_What I had lacked was lightness and laughter._

_With that I had found what I was after._

When his poem was over, the Jester King took his seat again.

"So, does that explain it?" he asked.

"I'm...not sure," Alex admitted.

"Well, rest assured – my life now is devoted to merriment and frivolity. I still have the collection of knowledge, but without the _fun_, it would be meaningless."

"There's wisdom in those words," Justin said, smiling at Alex.

"Ha, more than you even know," Alex teased. "I think you could stand to be a bit more frivolous."

"Probably true. Unfortunately, at the moment we need to know about Iohannes."

"Ah yes, John was up a bit ago. I can't remember exactly. It was after Gary, Son of Arne visited me. I recall that much because I considered telling John about the game Gary showed me. Something stopped me, though – those strange thoughts I told you about last night, I suppose."

"Huh?" Alex asked. Justin hadn't had a chance to tell her anything about the previous night. The Jester King realized this and gave a brief recap, though Justin was unable to infer any more than he had last evening.

Even Alex seemed to grasp the gravity of the news, if the quick but nervous glance she shared with Justin was any indication. Still, she revealed nothing to the Jester King.

"Well, if you had those reservations I cannot blame you for withholding the information," Justin said. "But do you happen to know where Iohannes was going, after visiting with you?"

"Oh, yes, of course," the Jester King said, snapping out of a brief daydream. "He had some business on the Gelded Plane. He had to head to the Nexus in the city of Concourse."

Justin suppressed his groan of annoyance. If the Wizards in the guild had just told him that, they might have been able to save some hassle. Still, this was part of the plot hook, wasn't it? For some reason, he and Alex had to learn of what the Jester King knew.

"Do you know when he'll be back?" Justin asked.

The Jester King thought for a moment, doing some mental calculations. "I think he'll be back on this plan within a week from now, but where he's going from there I don't know."

"Well, thank you for your help."

"Do you have another copy of that book?" Alex asked. Justin looked at her quizzically. "I think Justin could benefit from taking more time with it," she said.

"No, but if you're willing to stay here for a while, I could let you look at it at your leisure. If John isn't due back to this plane for a week, you probably won't be able to find him before then anyway," the Jester King reasoned.

"Perfect," Alex said. Justin shot her a glance, but then decided he'd be better off asking her after breakfast, when they could have a bit of privacy.

Breakfast was finished up quickly after that, and Justin and Alex excused themselves to their rooms, though they actually both met up in Alex's.

"So what are you thinking, anyway?" Justin asked Alex.

"You need some time with that book to see if it is exactly like the one from our world. Plus, it would be good to be refreshed about what might be coming. And you need to do this before we steal and destroy it."

"What the hell?" Justin cried. He had been following her up until that last line.

"If the Jester King is thinking what I think we both think he's thinking," Alex began, Justin working to parse the sentence. "Then this book is dangerous. Hell, the Jester King's knowledge itself is dangerous, but without the proof of the book I think he's safe to leave alone."

Justin couldn't believe either what Alex was saying or what she had apparently been considering. On the other hand, she had a point.

"I'd hate to admit it, but you may be right. That knowledge falling into the wrong hands could cause chaos. Then again, is it really our problem?"

"Justin! That's awful."

"But it's also true. Not just that it's not our problem, but that it might not even be our place to solve it. Wouldn't it have happened if we hadn't come here?"

"We don't know that," Alex pointed out. "We still don't know exactly how that spell worked."

"Ah shit, you're right," Justin said, changing his tone and demeanor. "This may just be part of this whole quest. I was going to say that we should just screw following up on it and chase down Iohannes to get back home, but we might be wrapped up in this."

"And if someone else knows the rules, you know what we're going to have to do?"

"What's that?"

"Optimize the shit out of our characters."


	21. Chapter XXI

Justin and Alex sat down in the study with the copy of the D&G compilation book. They were in luck, as this one had a number of supplements bound with it, most fortunately including the supplement that had Alex's class, Shadowstriker, in it.

"I think you should focus on your Deathstrike. Improved Deathstrike next level, then at 10 take Swift Death – it lets you cause a target that's taken damage from your Deathstrike to make a Fort save or die."

"Don't a lot of monsters have a good Fortitude save?" Alex asked. She had continually shown surprising insight and knowledge of the game, and Justin wondered if she didn't secretly think it was pretty fun.

"Yes, this is true. You should probably save it for casters. In a pinch I can cast Weakness on something to degrade its save."

"What about Fear effects?" Alex asked, pointing to another option Shadowstrikers got.

"What about them?" Justin asked, slightly distracted as he was writing down a list of Illusion spells that he thought might be useful.

"It's a Will save or they begin to flee. Don't most monsters have lower Will saves?"

"Yeah, but it just makes them run away."

"Isn't that just as useful?" Alex said. "You don't have to kill everyone you meet."

"Huh... I guess you're right." Justin looked closely at the Feat line for Fear and Deathstrike. "It looks like you can fit both into your build, too. You'd have to sacrifice some of the defensive feats though..."

"Pft, everything is going to be terrified or dead. Or attacking you. I think I'll be fine."

Justin took a drink of the hot cider that the Jester King had supplied them. When Alex asked if they could take some time to look at the book, the Jester King was more than happy to comply. Justin wasn't sure how they'd keep him from being curious enough to sit in on it, but they were in luck, as their host had other matters to attend to. He was in his room right now composing letters, and it would probably take him quite a while, as he had explained apologetically. Justin couldn't help but feel a bit bad, since they were planning on stealing this book. It was for a good cause – after all, it would be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. And there may only be wrong hands for it. Since they didn't know who else could have a copy they weren't going to destroy it, though. They would need the information for later.

"Well I'm hoping no one will be able to touch me, either," Justin said. He turned to the section that contained information on Illusion spells, and started looking at a set that involved trickery, misdirection, and phantom images such that enemies would have a tough time even targeting him. Or the real him, at least. Most of the good ones were a bit too high level to be terribly useful to them now, so he made sure to look through the spells that caused fatigue, exhausted, daze, or stun.

"One of my most useful spells, I already have, of course," Justin said, turning back to an earlier section with some of the more mundane, low-level spells. He pointed to Grease.

"Reflex save or they fall down," he explained. "Reflex is even worse than Will for some of our most common enemies, and it's the worst save for most of the more dangerous ones too."

"I don't imagine a dragon would be very susceptible to it though," Alex said.

"Hopefully if we ever have to face a dragon, by that time we'll have better resources." Justin tried to think what he'd use. By that time he'd have to get a lot of spell penetration in order to be effective, but with that, dragons could be awfully easy to hit with certain kinds of spells. They were large targets, after all. Dragons actually did have poor Reflex saves, but their size, quadrupedal build and ability to fly made Alex correct about how Grease wouldn't be very useful.

"Hey, how do we select these options, anyway?"

"I... you know, I'm not sure. It doesn't seem likely that we'll get a voice in our heads saying 'Ding!' denoting we've leveled up and need to choose new options."

"What's the in-universe explanation for how characters get more powerful?" Alex asked.

"Ah, see," Justin said. "That's kind of the problem. Some people play by rules where you don't 'level up' until your character has a chance to train or study. But just as many pretty much ignore any explanation and just allow the characters to suddenly be better. Story-wise it's probably just as good as any to say 'I've never attempted this spell before, but here it goes!'"

"Ugh, it makes less sense than magic in the real world," Alex said. "Or our real world, you know, whatever it is."

"From a certain point of view," Justin said. "Yes, I suppose. It'd be hard to ask a resident of this plane how things work, or we'd look like – wait! We've already told people that we're from another plane, right?"

"That's true."

"Maybe we could explain that things do work slightly differently there, and ask about how things work here?"

"Still sounds crazy."

"Damn, you're probably right. Still, if we'd had any more money, it would have been nice to at least buy a new spell and see if I could add it to my spell book and cast it."

"We're going to need money, aren't we?"

Justin thought for a moment. "Yeah, no real way around that. At the very least, to afford the spell to get us back home."

"Clearly we should go kill things to take their stuff."

Justin sighed. Admittedly, that about summed up D&G. But the tone Alex used managed to be ironic and callous and ironically callous all at the same time. It seemed a bit weird, maybe even evil, to be thinking of doing that now.

"Well do you have a target in mind? And you better not say the Jester King. We're already stealing this book, and he's not one of the arbitrary 'it's OK to kill this thing because it's evil' characters."

"No, of course not," Alex said. "In fact, my idea was more like archeology."

"Well I guess the only difference between that and tomb robbing is a few hundred years, but where'd you get this idea?"

Alex pulled another book out of a pile that was on the table they were using. "The Jester King's library has plenty of information. This tomb is said to never have been excavated – anyone who has tried has mysteriously perished."

"What makes you think we'd be able to, then?"

Alex stared at Justin blankly. "Because, Justin, this is a _plot hook_."


	22. Chapter XXII

Justin and Alex's plan to steal the book was so simple, it made Justin feel bad for the Jester King. But he had to agree with Alex about their reason for doing it. All they were doing, though, was putting it in their bags before they left. The Jester King had no real reason to suspect anything.

The funny thing was that they might have been able to just ask the Jester King if they could borrow it. Justin had thought of that, and he realized that their host may have even been fine with parting with it. But in a roundabout way, Justin didn't want to do that to him. He liked the Jester King, and he felt like by forcing that decision on him, he would regret it when they never returned the book. The Jester King himself would feel like a failure and a fool. Certainly he might feel a little taken advantage of when he noticed the book missing, but hopefully he would blame them, rather than himself.

Even worse would be if they explained the situation. They couldn't do that. Not without telling him outright that his world was a game with rules, and that this book could potentially allow one to cheat. That wasn't knowledge they felt they could trust anyone with, and even if they could trust the Jester King, they wouldn't want to burden him with it.

So as the Jester King bade them farewell, they were leaving with the book in Justin's pack. He was uncomfortable with it, but apparently the Jester King didn't notice anything.

After they were on the road for about half an hour, walking in mostly silence, Alex glanced over at Justin. "Hey, are you OK?" she asked.

Justin paused a beat before answering. "Yeah, I think so."

"I'm proud of you, being all sneaky and underhanded."

"Alex, we just put the book in my bag. It wasn't exactly the height of subterfuge."

"You didn't act strange at all around him this morning, though. Maybe I'm rubbing off on you." Alex smirked.

"I don't think either of us want that."

Alex grabbed Justin's hand and gave it a brief squeeze. "I'm serious though," she said. She let go of Justin's hand. Justin felt himself blush slightly. Memories of the past few days reeled through his head, but he set them aside for the time being.

"I'm kind of proud too," Justin said. "You're doing really well with this D&G stuff. Not just leveling your character, I mean, but you're really wrapping your head around the sort of metanarrative involved."

Justin had to agree that the tomb Alex found was probably a plot hook, and was probably their best bet to go for. Justin had not been metagaming _enough_ at the time she saw that. It was fortunate that Alex was. Her planning was fairly complete. She had them prepare spells for fighting the creatures in the tomb. Both Justin and Alex had found spells that would allow Alex's Deathstrike to be used against the undead, and Justin found a wizard spell that would harm undead. Unfortunately, that "found" was in the sense of "confirmed the existence of" rather than "added to his spellbook", and he still needed to acquire the spell itself. The Jester King didn't keep any grimoires himself; any spellbooks he found he gave to the Mage's Guild.

They had some traveling to do before they got to the tomb, and would pass through a few towns. Hopefully Justin would be able to find the spells he needed in one of them.

Possibly the best part of Alex's planning was that Justin had been panicking. After talking with the Jester King and realizing what he knew and what the book they now had was, Justin didn't know what to do. Focusing on the goal of getting enough money to get home was probably all they could really do for the moment, until they figured out their role in the greater plot. This tomb raiding would hopefully lead to the next thing they had to do, or at least get them some more money and experience so they would be prepared for what they had to do when they did do it.

They were about to come to a small town when it grew dark enough to make camp, and the town was small enough that Justin didn't know if it had an inn. So they put up their tent, a simple treated-to-be-waterproof cloth with some rope and makeshift poles of sticks, and rolled out their sleeping rolls next to one another, Alex unashamedly cuddling up to Justin again. Justin blushed yet again, but said nothing of it.

"I wonder how the Jester King is doing. I hope he hasn't found out we took the book yet," Alex said.

"Me too," Justin replied.

* * *

As luck would have it, the Jester King had not discovered that his book was missing. He was also retiring for bed, and at this hour most of his servants had either gone home or to their own beds. He was about to put his candle out when he swore he saw something out of the corner of his eye, by his bed and the window.

Suddenly alarmed, he turned to look. His window was open and a slight breeze flapped at his curtains. He grinned to himself at this. Imagine, scared of his own curtains!

However, he became alarmed again when he remembered he had closed the window, and looked around wildly once more. He was too late, however, as a hand clamped over his mouth.

"Good evening your highness," the figure attached to the hand said. "I am so sorry to bother you at this hour, but you have a book I am interested in. One given to you by a man named Gary, son of Arne? Do you still have this book?"

The hand was still clasped over his mouth, preventing the Jester King from speaking. He nodded his head, a bead of sweat forming on his brow.

"Let us go fetch it, shall we?" the figure continued. The Jester King allowed himself to be half-guided by his unknown assailant, while he half-guided him. They crept down to the study where the Jester King had last seen the book, careful not to alert anyone who may still be around. When they got there, the intruder let go of the Jester King and allowed the two to come face to face. Not that much more information was gleaned from this – the shadowy figure was still quite shadowy, clothed entirely in black and with his features covered. What was not covered were his various armaments – swords, knives and daggers sharpened to such a degree that they could slit a man's throat without him being able to scream. Which was precisely the point. Or edge, rather.

The Jester King looked horrified, and also for the book. When he couldn't find it, he began to grow even more frightened.

"It was here," he said. "I had it. By Freyjinn I swear I had it."

"Did you have any visitors?" the other figure said calmly, steepling his fingers.

"Yes!" The Jester King said, smiling and looking quite relieved. "Their names were Justin, a Wizard, and Alex, a Shadowstriker. And they did show much interest in the book! They must have taken it," he said. He described their features, while the other man listened patiently.

"Thank you, that will be greatly helpful in tracking it down." The black-clad man reached out to grab the Jester King again, and once again covered his face, this time including both the mouth and nose. He pressed tightly until the Jester King couldn't breathe.

"If it's any consolation," said the suffocater to the suffocatee. "I'd kill you whether you produced the book or not. Now sleep well, your highness." He held him in that position until the Jester King passed out, and then long enough beyond that that the killer could be sure his victim was dead.


End file.
